The Beast Within (1982) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - March 12, 1982

If the jumbled memories of my troubled adolescence are in anyway accurate, I would have read Edward Levy's novel The Beast Within in October or November of 1981. The film adaptation, which I remember reading about in Fangoria magazine (maybe issue #13, but definitely issue #15), was something that I looked forward to seeing.

Which is how and why I have come to know just how jumbled and co-mingled my memories of this time period have become.

You see, The Beast Within opened in theaters in and around the San Francisco Bay Area on March 12, 1982. But I know I saw The Beast Within on a double-bill with Night Warning (aka Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker) at the Southshore Twin Cinema in Alameda.

Yet, when I went through the local listings to find that double-bill in the newspaper archive, I could not find it. The Beast Within did not play at the Southshore Twin Cinema in 1982. But I also remember it feeling as if it had taken an eternity for me to be able to see The Beast Within on the big screen.

Turns out that double-bill of The Beast Within and Night Warning opened on Friday, January 7, 1983 and played for all of a week. Which means I probably saw it on the night of the 7th, 8th, or 9th. But I was certain it had to have been in the summer or fall of 1982, not the winter of 1983. Hell, it might have been on home video by then, because I remember watching it as a VHS rental at one point.

Another thing I remember is there being a rather raucous crowd in attendance at the Southshore Twin. There was plenty of jeering, laughing, and talkback throughout both movies. But the biggest laugh came during the "tragic" ending of The Beast Within, when some doofus in the back shouted, "He couldn't handle it!"

No spoilers, but if you have seen the movie, I think you can figure out just what moment that was that I am talking about here...