I Finally Experienced BEASTLY 

Thanks again to Surfshark for sponsoring the video - Use Code JEDI for an additional 3-months at surfshark.deals/jedi - Also some of you need jesus with how you're reading the title of the video

I honestly applaud the filmmakers and cast for pretending this wasn’t an extremely blatant post-Twilight cast grab

ngl, the concept of a man being cursed into being a fursona is a 100 times funnier

11:11 Lindy: I'm not like other YA protagonists. I fall for the rich, popular asshole before his character development.

This is the first time you've ever experienced the highs and lows of Beastly?? Alex Pettyfer's excellent acting? Vanessa Hudgens' incredible capacity to overlook a multitude of sins and admire a bully? "EMBRACE THE SUCK"?!?!?! C'mon now Amanda!

With adult hindsight I will always find it a bit funny that one of the reasons people bullied me in high school was because I was a goth and they believed I could do actual witchcraft. Like, if that was true, wouldn't it have resulted in the plot of this movie?

My coworker got a haircut and I saw him from across the sales floor and thought we had hired a new person. I'd definitely not recognize Kyle after he went bald and alt 🤣

In the book, Kyle transforms into a literal hairy beast. In the movie, he has a shaved head and tattoos, which actually suits Alex Pettyfer more than his clean cut look, and negates the point that he's supposed to be "ugly."

The tutor’s response to “just the lake cottage” had me scream, I had the same reaction

I just remember having such an issue with the casting. 1. Kendra, who is explicitly written as being fat…played by Mary-Kate Olsen, who had an infamously public battle with anorexia. 2. Book Lindy’s a ginger with crooked teeth, and not noticeably attractive…yes, Gabriella from HSM, Vanessa being the actress every little girl idolized at the time, is ugly and unpopular enough to fit the bill. And then there’s NPH, and I approve.

The intensity of your intermittent researching adds so much, and Kyle's tattoos are still better than Jared Leto's Joker.

regarding alex pettyfer - their attempt to make him into a "thing" was actually working back in the day but he blew it up himself because apparently he's a nightmare to work with according to what i read. channing apparently hated him during filming of magic mike because he was a total diva. i also read that he had to have a handler on set while filming beastly because they just couldn't deal with him. so that's probably why he went from up and coming leading man heart throb to wannabe gangster side character in a justin timberlake sci-fi romance.

"awe cute now she doesn't have to date an uggo" is such a funny line

Okay we need a High School Musical series (including Sharpey’s Adventure) retrospective. Please Amanda, as one Canadian to another, embrace the wildcats

It's been years and years and YEARS since I saw that movie and I still think Kendra was the coolest and wish the movie was about her walking around and teaching jerks lessons instead of whatever this was.

What happened to Alex Pettyfer is he is a known physical and emotional abuser and difficult to work with so he was blacklisted.

I actually met the author while I was in high school. She talked a bit about her book and asked us if we had any questions. I asked her "What makes a book young adult?" and her answer was along the lines of "The main character is a young adult" and she asked me what kind of book I wanted to write. I wanted to write a military history young adult book. She liked my answer and gave me a copy of the book. I never read it XD

fun fact: there is an alternate ending they filmed for this movie where he does "die" trying to save her and she confesses her love, last rose petal style.

Jenny Nicholson's video was funny but she never dare to read the Books, so I do appreciate Amanda's effort and willingness to torture herself in the name of the noble goal of guiding us in what NOT to tune in, no matter how boring Friday night is 😁. And also for our entertainment. Definitely some Maximus level of commitment (Are you Not Entratained!?)

okay but shaving alex pettyfer and giving him tattoos in an attempt to make him "ugly" while accidentally making him even hotter is really funny to me

Kendra's sadly an actual witch, you find out more about her backstory/past failures with curses in Bewitching. Duel POV with a Cinderella sideplot [main character is the stepsister], and then interspersed through it is Kendra's backstory and her past attempts to help, such as with the Little Mermaid [Though she admits she regrets the voice price, and that it was just the first thing she thought of].

Jenny Nicholson’s video on Beastly is still an absolute classic

When I tell you this movie BROKE ME. I loved the book so much but the movie was an atrocity. They dare to use my favorite song in the trailer and I can’t believe the audacity 😂

I remember reading an interview the author did, (maybe it was in the back of my copy of Beastly?) where she talks about why Lindy's homelife was the way it was. If I remember right, she said that she wanted a believable reason for a daughter to *want* to get away from home. The father being an addict and someone who cared more about drugs than his own kid, and a coward willing to offer up his own child to save his skin was what the author landed on.

Kendra and Wanda really pulling together the cinematic universe of Olsen sisters playing witches 🧙‍♀

According to RU-vidr Abitfrank, the part about the girl dreaming about the beast is canon to the fairytale. There's a point where every night, the fairy that had cursed the prince made Belle have very vivid ADULT dreams about the beast. So, that is not something the author added, but brought back from the early versions of the story.

Regarding Alex Pettyfer, I think I remember something about Dianna Agron slapping a restraining order against him and that she hid from him in hotels while they were dating and he tried to seduce a director for a role and it didn’t go well for him. He got Magic Mike and then was blacklisted for a while. He seemed like a jackass and it caught up to him. Idk if he ever fully recovered 😅

A bit of context on the chatroom thing you mentioned in the beginning: the author exclusively writes "modern takes on fairytales" Beastly was just her biggest hit. She did sleeping beauty, the shoemaker, snow white, etc. I think the chatroom was a nod to that.

HELP, I ACCIDENTALLY READ IT AS "BEASTIALITY" IM ROTATING IN HEAVEN-

Jenny Nicholson is fucking hilarious and her video on Beastly (as well as pretty much her entire channel) is absolutely hysterical and very much worth checking out. One of the most effortlessly funny people I've come across on this platform

I don't remember loving Beastly, and I haven't read all of the Kendra Chronicles, but I actually really enjoy Bewitching. It's an anthology of Kendra engaging with different fairytales throughout time, with the main throughline being a modern take on Cinderella but from the perspective of the stepsister. It's not amazing, but it's a fun YA read imo

I think you kind of glossed over how consistently awful Kyle was in the book. He was spying on everyone with that mirror, including watching people when they were naked without their consent. When he redoes those rooms for Lindy, he includes a bunch of clothes that are her size because he has looked for that information about her. He also goes into her room while she is sleeping at one point, and the book frames it as a sweet moment. It’s really messed up.

...So basically, instead of being Beauty and the Beast, this is the story of Gaston (if he had been turned into a beast) and one of the non-Belle village girls that swoon over him

As someone who read the prequel, I can assure you that her real name is indeed Kendra.

Ive watched this movie multiple times and I would not recognize Hunter as Kyle, they look so different!

I was always baffled how they managed to make the "ugly" version of the dude WAY hotter by all but maybe mormon tween standards

"Let me know if you have any interest in th--" YES! Please! I need all of the Kendra Khronicles!

I always feel like I would have been a bit disappointed if I was Lindy, having fallen in love with a brooding goth-y bad boy only for him to turn into a typical blond jock 💀

That surfshark integration transition was perfection 😆💜

“what’s with the mask??” “i didn’t want to freak you out!” is actually REALLY funny

oh my god idk if anyone was expecting you to watch this but thank you. I’ve only ever heard about the book in passing so thanks

My highschool book club read this before the movie came out and then we went to the theater to watch together. I looooooved the book, and then i saw the movie and thought it was good. I saw movie for the first time again last year and was floored by how bad it was. I was like dang, was the book also this bad?? Re-read the book, its still pretty good! Kyle is way more sympathetic in the book and Lindy doesnt seem like such a sap, relationship is more fleshed out, it is a big darker with the abuse and kyles monster fantasies. The tone IS weird like she mentioned though. Heavy on the Y with the YA voice but some more A themes.

I was going to go to bed but I need to hear what happened once Amanda embraced The Suck

One thing I kinda like is the little eye/flower tattoo that remains even after the curse is broken to serve as a reminder of the consequences of Kyle’s assholery so that he (hopefully) doesn’t repeat it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a version of Beauty and the Beast do this before; have a small amount of the curse remain permanent, even after it’s broken, to remind the Prince/Beast of what being a cruel dickhead got him.

I was obsessed with the Kendra Chronicles in middle school. There were lots of interesting stories, like Cinderella but the Stepsister was the good guy, Princess and the Pea that results in Kendra being banished from France, an Ugly Duckling story about high school popularity, or The Little Mermaid on the Titanic, Eros and Phsyche story during WW1 (or maybe WW2, can't really remember). Also the Salem Witch Trials for reasons. I think that was supposed to be little red riding hood.

Oh Amanda that book released the year I graduated from COLLEGE. 2007/2011 are, like, yesterday to me and any baby born after 2000 is still in elementary school.😂

Stories like this are so hurtful to young people, because they imply that "you can fix the abuser with unconditional love". Especially bad when the family relationship also already was abusive.

"Mostly ok" is such a vibe

Another pretty cool take on the Beauty and the Beast story is the 1987 Beauty and the Beast tv series. It's a police procedural, starring Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman. I don't remember much about it because I was still young at the time, and the beast scared the crap out of me, but the more I read up on it, the more I want to track it down and watch it.

I read the original book. It’s a pretty good read. It was one of my go-tos in my high school years, to the point that I was probably the one person in high school who had both the physical book and the audio book checked out at my school library at the same time. I haven’t yet seen the movie but I mostly avoid it because of the major changes it implements of both making Kyle’s “beast form” just a heavily scarred and tattooed human and also making Lindy a generic pretty girl instead of the intially homely girl we first meet her as. Lindy’s casting especially disappointed me as it was the first time I saw a Beauty in a Beauty and the Beast who wasn’t the most beautiful girl but instead was someone closer to my appearance (I’m not a red head like book Lindy but I am pretty mousey in appearance). It really showcased the message the best, and casting Vanessa Hudgens was such a let down. Also Kyle’s Beast form being an actual beast had a significant plot point that Jenny Nicholson pointed out: because it takes place in modern day, Kyle’s life was more significantly screwed up because he literally couldn’t go out or else he’d be either thrown in a zoo or killed, especially with how the internet would’ve made it impossible for him to hide again, unlike the original tale which takes place in 1700’s France where all the Prince had to do to hide his curse was…hide in his castle, something he already would be doing as a royal. And even more? The reason I gave for why Kyle’s curse was much worse in the book is actually used against Kendra because she’s part of a coven who are trying to hide in modern day, so what she did put them in actual danger of being discovered by the modern world, so she actually gets in serious trouble for what she did, as it was stupid and reckless. I’m just saying, this book is much better than it had any right to be, and it even influenced me as an aspiring writer.

in such stories the girls always have to do the heavy lifting. being beautiful and unreasonably good and kind (a goody-two-shoes) and accepting the horrid male character as he is. it's not like that guy has to work all that hard to get her to like him, and he doesn't have to court a 'ugly' girl either.

This movie was IT for teen me at the time when i had a huge crush on Alex Pettyfer lol ESPECIALLY when they had the Beastly merch!! i remember going to Borders Bookstore & Toys R Us where they had a small section of many Beastly-themed items (blanket, pillow, bookmark, diary, calendar, pen, etc)...i got the blanket and i loved it so much...i don't even know where it is anymore or if i still have it lol

I'd love to see your take on the Fallen book series. They only make the first movie

I went to the pre-screening focus group for Beastly and a fun little trivia nugget is that the movie had a completely different ending. In the pre-release they end up at a school dance making out in a giant empty fish tank along the wall. It made absolutely no sense and I’d like to think they changed it because everybody ragged on it sooo hard 😂😂😂

In the book, Kyle has 2 years and spent the 1st year getting used to being a beast and grows roses for therapy. The next year, Linda's dad breaks into his greenhouse and her dad gives Kyle his daughter to keep him from telling the cops.

Is her real name "Linda," which means pretty/beautiful in Spanish? I guess that tracks with the original, her being called Belle and everything.

Kendra was ICONIC this movie really cemented my identity as A Little Weird, Actually™️ since I loved Kendra's style and the Beast form was not actually that weird to my 15yo self. The type of movie that makes you reflect on yourself and see Oh, this is why people say I'm kinda weird

No Amanda. You don't understand the disruption that this movie caused for anyone who liked the book. Middle school me defended this ish with my life and recommended it to many. But then was ready to fight after seeing the movie 😂 Honestly, this book, the fallen series, and beautiful creatures (books and movie) feel like a twilight fever dream. But then I remember they're real, and I read them 💀

You couldn’t BELIEVE the amount of people who have said they were forced to watch this movie when struggling with body dysmorphia 💀

9:05 I never noticed the eye brow thing. They actually used cursive arabic letters to spell " embrace / suck " on each eyebrow. Pretty funny to me 😂👍🏼

9:28 I still can't get over how N.P.H is just doing a Matt Murdock Cosplay

I've played the Wii game for this. The game was lackluster. Felt cashgraby but I didn't know it was based on anything. But it makes more sense with the knowledge of your video.

"It's New York, so many other explanations would come up first" as a New Yorker, can confirm.

LOVED the book as a teen. It was how well he "knew her", with the library and the name on the door...I thought it was the most romantic thing ever 🙃 I think it was just that it was from the "pursuer" perspective. You usually saw the story from the heroine's point of view, especially in the books I was reading at the time. It was cool to see the male lead notice what was special about her

I saw it randomly on TV while visiting my sibling a few years after the movie came out, never thought of it again, then people on RU-vid made videos about it... thus acknowledging this movie existed.

In the original; Belle learns to accept the Beast and help him learn to read; it was cute and when they dance together it was adorable. Their chemistry was real! In this movie: Beauty is more important than anything else. If you have tattoos and scars, your ugly. Weird message 🤨

I wasn’t alive when this movie came out but I read the book in 5th grade and loved it and swore to never watch the movie but last year I did and it was hysterical

So Alix Flinn wrote a buch of modern retellings and then connected all of them with the witch, who had her own book called "Bewitching" which basically made her misundersood and more of an elphba type where she tried to do a bunch of good, but it all backfired. and yes, her name is Kendra. (Granted I read all of these like 10 years ago, so it's a bit foggy, but that's what i remember) Edit: Obviously I didn't finish the video when I wrote this, because you do bring up the kendra cronicles.

God, I forgot about this film ENTIRELY but saw it in theaters with my sister. We LOVED it haha. Happy timesn

Honestly, the book is a time capsule of my adolescence. The book was one of the first young adult fairy tale retellings to capture my imagination and it was just cozy and cheesy and romantic and pretty much cemented my adoration of “Beauty and the Beast” retellings.

To explain why Lyndi didn’t recognize Kyle: aside from the fact the movie didn’t make him a literal beast, was that in the book in his time of self discovery he lost every bit of his confidence and actually became a quiet hearted poet. So in a sort of “Superman/Clark Kent” sort of style he became so drastically different than his old self to the point he’s unrecognizable. I remember the movie pissing me off when they made it feel rushed…. Course I may also be misremembering in favor of the book cause this was one of my favorites.

The book is awesome. I also highly recommend Alex Flinn's other books, especially A Kiss in Time which SHOULD have been a movie.

In "High School Musical" Vanessa's character Gabriella was a math wiz who was nervous about singing.

Amanda going of in a HSM tangent and how she could really sing the song well if it wasn't 10pm is such a mood 😭

Attempting to read this book in my teens is one of the many, maaaaany reasons my debut novel was a Beauty and the Beast retelling: I wanted a version involving no kidnapping or bargaining, where Beauty is not imprisoned by the Beast. Forced proximity = great. Imprisoning your love interest = not that.

Oh yes, my Sunday night is about to be epic!! There was a book? Guess I know what I'm reading later. So long since I watched the movie, but I remember blind NPH and a witchy Olsen twin. And from what I've read, seems Pettyfer was basically playing himself at the start of the movie.

Okay am i the only one who didnt know it was based on a book and freaking ate this movie up as a teen. Like i loooved it and watched it countless times...

Cursed Kyle looks like "We have the Pinhead Cenobite from Hellraiser at home..".

This movie reminds me of that CW show ‘beauty and the beast’. Does anyone remember that one??

I saw this at the cinema when it came out, and have it on dvd (I haven’t owned a dvd player in about 10 years) I feel so old now😸 I loved MK Olsen in this, she stole the show and I think about her outfits a lot

I read them when/before the books released because my mum was in book club with Flinn. I was in middle school and reading them, they were great at the time. But the movie was weird, and I didn't end up reading most of the companion books.

I am not even surprise that book from that time suggest that housekeeper is Polish... Magda is Polish name and Poles was mostly shown as housekeepers during that period (like in Gossip Girl). But you saying Magda the witch sounds better was funny - it is really popular name, I would say it sounds soooo mundane (it is almost as popular in Poland as our versions of Anne and Kate)

8:50 HOLY FUCK I never realized his eyebrows say "embrace suck" LMAO

Erik Knudsen (Scream 4 guy) was also in the canadian sci-fi series Continuum and I freakin love him in it

I enjoyed the book a lot. Her takes on fairytales are really interesting. Cloaked was really good. And I liked her take on Sleeping beauty as well. Never saw the movie though I do own the DVD. Kendra is actually a really intriguing character in the books. Bewitching gives more background on Kendra, it's sort of a mix of different fairy tale stories with the main one being Cinderella with a twist. Mirrored does as well but this one is really good take on Snow White. I'm still reading the fourth one.

I borrowed this movie from the library and watched it on my crummy, paving stone of a laptop. Literally all I remember of the experience is thinking "Well, I'm definitely not reading that book", and watching a Tony Jaa movie immediately after 😂Which also had a tragic elephant story too, now that I think about it

When I saw the trailer I was so excited for this movie lol. I have a chronic illness so the first time I had planned to watch it I ended up in the ER instead for three days. The second time I was only even more excited and then I saw it in theatres and was like. Oh. Ohh. I don't like this very much. It disappointed me so much. I didn't even know there was a book for it out.

Ok but Alex Flinn and all her other fairytale young adult books literally saved me in school. A Kiss in Time (sleeping beauty) and Towering (rapunzel) were my favorites please check them out if reading!!

that movie is my guilty pleasure, I can't help but love it

oh no, I GRAVELY misread the title..

I just realised that the author also wrote a book that I read about the frog prince (called cloaked)? I read it like 8 years ago, but remember liking it, curious to see what beastly was like.

I, for one, would very much love for you to do a dive into the other books!

Omg yes please on the Kendra chronicles

I'd never even heard of the book or movie until Jenny's vid a while back 😂 and still, I am so here for your commentary on it

I've always been curious about Beastly but I never got around to watching or reading it so I appreciate this video lol. I'd love for you to do the other Kendra Chronicles books too lol

I am so glad you have now experienced the brilliance of Beastly

I love fairytales, because there are so many ways you can tell and retell them. They are some of the most retold stories out there. Cinderella for example has over 700 variants alone. Each one emphasizes a different theme or idea from the story. I like Beastly because it wasn't trying to be Disney, it was it's own thing. It might have landed firmly in the so bad it's good category, but at least I remember it.

Actually i watchd it when it came out, when I was all in the Twilight craze, and i just always wished that he would stay as a "Beast" Like come on, he looks like an EMP Employe (European Hot Topic) and that was what i was all about when I was 13.

I've waited 12 years for this! Someone else doing a great review of the film so I'd never have to see it 😁. Thanks for doing the work, Amanda!

I haven't forgotten your promise to cover the mortal instruments / shadow hunters. IT HAS BEEN YEARS AMANDA