At the start of “Beast”, a young bar patron drifts away from her friends after closing hours and is stalked and mauled to death by a werewolf. The beast grabs her, tears her apart, and howls into the sky. I enjoyed that. But, for no other reason I can imagine but to piss me the hell off, director Scott feels that even though we had that good opening signaling grand things, we could have done without it for another thirty or forty minutes, which in common sense land is a large portion of a film that doesn’t even hit the two hour mark, and that makes zero sense. And then for most of the film it’s:

Officer: A local girl was mauled to death.
Officer 2: Let’s get on this!
Officer: I agree, let’s discuss this for an hour or two first, and then discuss with others about what we’ve discussed.
Officer 2: And what about forensics, or local investigators?
Officer: No, let’s get our sheriff with the funny hat to check it out.
Officer 2: Should we launch a curfew and restrictions on the wooded areas?
Officer: No, idiot. Everyone in town happens to have a gun in their home, at hand, loaded, cocked, and ready to fire. Not to mention they all shoot well, and launching such restrictions would waste their time, moron.
Officer 2: Can we at least get scientists to discover the origin of the attacks?
Officer: No, let’s just pass it off as local legend, talk about it for a little while, and hold two press conferences. No one in town is alarmed, anyway, especially a girl who watched her husband get gutted in front of her.
Officer 2: What about notifying local businesses to warn customers?
Officer: Local businesses? There’s only one bar in town where most of the action takes place and the core characters roam.
Officer 2: Can we notify them, at least?
Officer: No. That makes no sense. What else do we need…?
Officer 2: Ooh, a lynch mob! We need a lynch mob with a cliché hunter who knows nature and has an “Indiana Jones” fedora!
Officer: Now you’re making sense! Let’s talk about it some more.

So, after much of the same string of logic or lack thereof, there’s also mainly vapid characterization, plenty of padding including sex scenes, particular focus on sister journalists who have a web log, and a comedic barroom brawl included for no other reason but to pad the movie. Meanwhile, you’ll be wondering if the monster is still lurking about, or just fell asleep waiting for victims to get out of that bar that's featured quite prominently.

Does anyone have a shop in that town, or is the main economic base that one small bar? You know that when a horror film is turned into “Roadhouse” for an instance just to keep the story going, it becomes painfully clear that you’re not watching anything resembling entertainment. Also featured are a funeral that looks like it was held in a backyard, a town filled with an endless supply of women who look like they came off an open audition for “Hustler”, the most inept inactive sheriff, and characters that constantly re-appear due to an obviously menial cast.

So, it’s been confirmed to me. Even when The Asylum isn’t ripping off another movie, they still suck. “Beast of Bray Road” could have been a fun movie had they actually had creature action and not so much utter stupidity and poor storytelling. Otherwise, this isn’t even a fun monster movie.

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