Not every short film needs to become a feature. In his 2018 10-minute film, "Krista," writer/director Danny Madden had a laserlike focus on the titular theatre school kid, but the expansion into Beast Beast brings in two completely new characters and interwoven threads. It also shifts the target of discussion. In the short, Shirley Chen's character uses her acting class as a way to strike back at sexual harassment and objectification. In Beast Beast the returning Chen plays a different but similar Krista, a high school drama student who crosses paths with Nito (Angeles), a skateboarder with a rough home life but a friendly, earnest demeanor. He's her locker neighbor, but her real neighbor back home is Adam (Madden), a 24-year-old with a YouTube channel about his gun collection.