I love reviewing shit and here’s a big reason. Most screeners come without anything saying what the movie is, no covers or press sheets. This makes it fun to try and guess what kind of film you’re about to see, based on just the title. ‘Destined to be Ingested’ is still king of the “I’ve got to see this” titles. Also, there’s always going to be something bad when you see a sweet-looking cover. You either get unrealistically high expectations along with a massive let-down, or the synopsis sounds fucking stupid and you don’t want to waste time watching it to begin with. For this reason, I never look up any of the unknown titles until I’ve watched them. The latest to fit this blind viewing pattern was Beast Within. I was guessing either werewolves or sick people doing fucked up shit, but wasn’t even close.

King Kong ain't got nothing on me!

First off, the title doesn’t really fit the content of the film. It’s not about the deep sickness of the human condition, and no one turns into a beast or werewolf. IMDB says the original title is “Virus Undead”, which makes much more sense. Looking at the cover now, it says “The Birds meets Outbreak” which would be a good description, except the birds don’t do much past the first death. In a small town somewhere in Germany (I can tell by the actor’s names, voice accents and signs around town) a new form of the bird flu virus has caused the birds and other animals to go bad and eventually drop dead. Professor Bergen, who has been studying the virus and created a vaccine, is attacked and killed by a murder of crows. Only we the viewers know this, while everyone else thinks Alzheimer’s did him in and that the birds just got a snack after the fact.

Just a little prick

This introduces us to the Professor’s grandson Robert (Philipp Danne) and his two friends who are going to the mansion to check it out and do the paperwork you do when family dies. Along with Robert are sex-crazed party-boy Patrick (Marvin Gronen) and shy, soft-spoken Eugen (Nikolas Jürgens). They are all doctors or scientists to be, currently attending college. They stop in at a gas station for supplies where Robert finds his ex-girlfriend Marlene (Birthe Wolter) who now owns and runs it. Also employed there is sexy voluptuous Vanessa (Anna Breuer). Seeing the rack on her, Patrick wastes no time inviting the girls to come to the mansion later that night. The trio then runs into the neighborhood bully Bollman (Ski) and stereotypical cop Leahman, who always has a donut in hand. I’m starting to see that there isn’t going to be much originality here, thankfully the directing is solid, there are great visuals to groove on, and the anticipation of Anna’s titties!

After an afternoon of raiding the wine cellar, the dudes wake up from a nap, hungry. They want to order some grub, but the only delivery place is Bollman’s. Eugen keeps finding dead animals all over the place. Thanks to Bollman, they find dead animals in their fries as well. Before long, the ladies arrive and the pace picks up. The couples eventually pair up; leaving Eugen to sit and drink alone, but it looks like he’s already drank too much. Robert and Marlene go for a walk, Patrick and Vanessa go fuck. Oh yeah, those are some beautiful breastistists. Not the best angles to highlight them, but clearly enough very nice.

On the road again...

Bollman sits around drinking at his place, but his delivery boy has gone missing. See he stopped to smoke a joint after dropping off the food, but was pulled away by something off-screen. So Bollman comes to visit and kick some ass, but something he ate isn’t agreeing with him. When he shows up at the mansion, his face is covered in boils and he sounds like death. It’s starting to look like the meat has gone foul and may be what starts infecting everyone. As he smashes the car with a sledgehammer, he suddenly just drops on his back, apparently dead. But he wakes back up instantly with superhuman strength. Patrick hears banging on the door and lets Bollman in, but he is obviously something else now. He bites a huge chunk out of Patrick’s arm before collapsing again. What follows is a cross between standard zombie movies with some 28 Days Later type rules. The infected aren’t really dead, and the virus just turns itself on and off here and there, explaining why one second Bollman is eating Patrick’s arm and the next he’s laid out on the floor. I guess it explains why some infected are lumbering and slow, while others move quickly. Whichever side of the fast or slow style zombie debate you fall on, there’s a bit of it here for ya.

No false advertising

Bollman is back up and attacking again, but a gunshot through the mouth stops him for good. Guess it’s classic zombie-stopping rules. Robert and Marlene ride out on bicycles to look for help, while Eugen and Anna break into the mysterious door behind the wine rack. It’s Roberts’s grandfather’s secret lab, and contains a handy shotgun and audio tapes full of plot points. The bikers find the cops, but they are already infected and eating people at a check-stop. Seeing this, they high-tail it back home but soon the whole place is surrounded by the infected. Does the secret to stopping this viral infection rest in the lab? Will the lone drop of Bollman’s blood on Robert’s neck infect him? Who will live and who will die? Will anyone escape? You’ll have to watch to find out, hopefully.  Not everything is wrapped up and there’s shit going on in the final act that still baffles me on second viewing. I honestly can’t tell you if one character lives or dies, but I’d have to guess die. Just playing the odds; although they were last seen kicking some major ass, so maybe they made it. Now let’s check the good and the bad, and weigh out the final results.

Good:

There is some “Thing”-type paranoia about who is infected and who isn’t. They even take blood tests at one point!
Creepy flesh-eating crows, always a fan favorite!
Great practical make-up effects. It’s far from a gore-fest, but the boils and wounds look very real.
Creepy performance by Nikolas Jürgens as Eugen. His character goes through the most changes in his arc, from timid little bitch to seething sick-fuck, all the while maintaining believability.
Dark humor here and there. When the zombie cop shows up with a donut still in hand it is just hilarious in an absurd way.
Not instantly knowing who will live or not. They kind of flipped this on us, and some characters who would probably survive any standard Hollywood film, don’t make it through this.

Great direction, cinematography and editing. Even when the movie drags in places, it’s still pretty to look at. When it’s supposed to get tense, it gets tense. Anna Breuer’s tits!

This can't be good

Bad:

Where is this supposed to be set? Someone mentions someone else being sent to school in the States, so maybe it is Germany all along. But if that’s so…
Why does everyone speak English? They try to mask the accents, but they keep shining through in spots, especially when someone yells or raises their voice.
Not much originality. Besides the stop-start mutations of the virus, I feel like I’ve seen this all before, repeatedly.
Anna Breuer’s tits not seen clearly enough, or enough at all for that matter.
Characters doing dumb shit in the final act.
Why do the birds only attack sometimes, when other times they just hang around?

Fuck tha police!

I’d have to say the good outweighs the bad enough to recommend at least a rent. Zombie fans should appreciate it. Fans of the Birds will have to look elsewhere. Besides two scenes and a few shots of them flying by, the birds aren’t a huge factor. One nice rack, some good gore effects and a few laughs. Entertaining enough. Looks like this played festivals in 2008. Amazon and DVDEmpire both say this DVD was released Nov. 2009, strange to get a screener now. Worth a watch.

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