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The Beast Must Die
[Dark Sky]
1973; color
Directed by Paul Annett
Starring: Calvin Lockhart, Peter Cushing, Marlene Clark, Anton Diffring, Charles Gray, Ciaran Madden, Tom Chadbon & Michael Gambon
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The Beast Must Die is an innovative, reasonably original werewolf movie from the fine folks at Amicus Films. In many ways, it's typical of the studio's output. The American-owned, British-based company rivaled Hammer for most of it's 18-year run (1962-1980), and surpassed them (in quality at least) by the time the horror giant finally gave up the ghost in the mid-'70s. Their productions, at least the ones I've seen, are similar to Hammer except the pacing is much faster and the overall look is closer to an old TV Movie Of The Week; or maybe a grittier episode of The Six Million Dollar Man. It's kind of like Hammer as envisioned by AIP. But enough about that, let's get to the matter at hand. The Beast Must Die opens up by directly addressing the audience, letting the viewer know that it's their job to figure out who the werewolf is, and that the movie will stop at a certain point before the conclusion so they can be given the opportunity to guess. Things open up with a man being chased by helicopter across a wooded area. It becomes quickly clear he's the owner of the vast estate and is actually testing his new security / surveillance system by making himself the target. Because, you see, this guy is a wealthy big game hunter and is going for his biggest trophy yet - a werewolf. To that end, he's invited five guests for the weekend, all of whom can in some way be tied to various werewolf-type mutilation deaths where no killer has never been found. His theory is that since there will be a full moon over the weekend (one that apparently lasts for three nights) the werewolf will eventually have to reveal his / her identity. Only four of the guests are potential werewolves however, one is a Swiss doctor who's an expert in werewolves played by Peter Cushing; with a ridiculous accent that's so weird it wouldn't surprise me if it had been dubbed in by someone else. (BTW what school do you go to for that certification?) Over the first two nights the body count begins to mount, leaving only a limited amount of options by the time the film pauses to challenge the viewer. The werewolf, to Amicus' credit, is not the typical grown man with wolf makeup, it's just a very big, very snarly, bad-ass wolf. And the transformation isn't some slow, pained event, rather, it's almost instantaneous. Despite a small cast (only eight people overall), the deaths are spaced apart enough to keep things going at a good pace and there's still enough people left alive for a good red herring that was an unexpected twist just before the end. As with the other entries in The Amicus Collection (see here & here), TBMD is highly recommended.
—the Kommandant
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