A 'Game of Thrones' Star's Divisive Thriller Officially Gets Its Streaming Redemption 2 Years Later

Lade Omotade is a News and Features Author at Collider, covering everything from casting announcements and streaming trends to behind-the-scenes stories and the cultural impact of today’s biggest film and TV franchises. Since joining the team in 2024, she has written more than 1,000 news stories, with her work also cited by outlets like AOL and IMDb.

In 2024, Game of Thrones star Kit Harington appeared in a British fantasy thriller that drew worldwide criticism but now seems to have found redemption. Fans may recall that Harington played Jon Snow throughout all eight seasons of the HBO mega-hit, which ran from April 17, 2011, to May 19, 2019.

Unlike in Game of Thrones, this divisive film casts Harington in a darker light, presenting him through his daughter Willow’s eyes. After a series of strange events makes 10-year-old Willow question her family’s isolated life on a fortified compound deep in the English wilds, she follows her parents on one of their secret late-night treks into the ancient forest. There, she witnesses her father undergo a terrible transformation and becomes ensnared in the dark ancestral secret they’ve tried so desperately to conceal.

Two years after its release, The Beast Within has found a new audience on HBO Max, where it finally broke into the global Top 10 earlier this week. It also reached in several countries, including Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, and Serbia. Directed by Alexander J. Farrell, who co-wrote the script with Greer Ellison, the horror film draws inspiration from classic horror movies and folklore, blending mystery with psychological terror. Its producers include Merlin Merton, Martin Owen, Karl Hall, Ryan Hamilton, and Jack Christian. Alongside Harington, the cast features Ashleigh Cummings, James Cosmo, and Caoilinn Springall.

Four franchises, four completely different ways of getting underneath
your skin. This is the one built out of your particular fear, why it works so well on you, and what
it would leave behind.

Your nightmare does not wait outside the door. It waits for you
to close your eyes, which you are going to have to do eventually, because nobody has ever
won that particular argument.

• Freddy is horror’s cruellest idea: a threat that lives in the one place you cannot
  guard, cannot lock, and cannot avoid forever.
• You are the one who is fine during the film and wide awake at two in the morning. Your
  own head is where this does its damage.
• These films understood exhaustion as a horror engine. The kids on Elm Street do not lose
  because they are weak. They lose because they are tired.
• You can lock every door in the house. You still have to sleep.

Your nightmare is not really the doll. It is the face of the
person you tell, and the way they decide, very kindly, that you have imagined all of it.

• Chucky works precisely because he is absurd. That is the trap: the more accurately you
  describe him, the less anybody is going to believe you.
• You are the one shouting at the screen because the characters are not listening. You
  know that feeling from real life too.
• The franchise is at its best when the adults in the room are the real obstacle, and you
  have met those adults.
• By the time somebody finally believes you, you will have handled most of it on your own.

Your nightmare has your number, knows your name, and has almost
certainly been inside your house before. The worst part is that you already know them.

• Scream is the only one of these where the killer takes the mask off and turns out to be
  somebody who was at the party.
• You are the person who calls the twist out loud before it lands. You watch people the
  same way you watch films.
• The franchise made the rules of horror part of the plot, which means the survivors are
  the ones paying attention. You would be paying attention.
• Everybody is a suspect, including the person who just offered to walk you home.

Your nightmare is not really about you. It is about the people
asleep down the hall, and the feeling that whatever is here is not interested in leaving.

• The Conjuring films are domestic horror. The house, the family, the perfectly ordinary
  room that quietly stops feeling ordinary.
• Your instinct is to get everybody into one room. Your fear is protective rather than
  personal, which is rarer than it sounds.
• This is the one franchise where belief is the weapon. The people who come through it are
  the ones who are not alone and refuse to be.
• Whatever is here did not come for you. It came for the household, and you are the one
  standing in the hallway.

Fans of ‘The Beast Within’ Need To Watch These Other Werewolf Films

If you’re looking for another thrilling and mysterious movie with bite to watch this weekend, there are also a couple of similar movies to the 2024 film, all perfect for a horror-themed binge. First up is the 97-minute Norwegian film Viking Wolf, released on Netflix in November 2022. In the horror thriller, a 17-year-old girl is bitten by a werewolf and gradually begins to transform, while her police officer mother is too busy dealing with the werewolf’s other activities to notice her daughter’s condition.

Another great pick similar to The Beast Within is the 2025 werewolf movie Wolf Man, starring Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner. It follows Blake (Abbott), whose marriage is fraying, as he persuades his wife Charlotte (Garner) to take a break from the city and visit his remote childhood home in Oregon, where strange and sinister things happen. One more major recommendation is the upcoming Focus Features horror film Werwulf, directed by Robert Eggers and set to release this Christmas.

The Beast Within streams on HBO Max.

The Beast Within