Were-dunnit
The Beast Must Die
UK 1974 Directed by Paul Annett
Amicus/Severin Blu Ray Zone A
Warning: You might want to take a spoiler break during this review.
Not to be confused with other movies and TV shows with, you know, the exact same title... The Beast Must Die is one of Amicus studio’s last proper horror movies, based on a short story by famous Star Trek novelisation and sci-fi writer James Blish. This one mixes the ideas of a typically English country house ‘whodunnit’ mystery with the added element of lycanthropy and, in the case of this movie adaptation, a nod to the very quick influence of the blaxploitation cinema of the time, in the form of main protagonist Tom, played by Calvin Lockhart and his wife Caroline, played by Marlene Clark.
Joining them are a whole host of actors, many of those who would not find themselves out of place in a stuffy, British, Agatha Christie style, ‘slowly whittled away guests’ kind of movie... such as Peter Cushing, Charles Gray, Tom Chadbon (who I best remember as Duggan from the City Of Death storyline in the Tom Baker era of Doctor Who), a young Michael Gambon and, working the security until he suffers a gory demise halfway through the movie, Anton Diffring.
We also have Valentine ‘The Man In Black’ Dyall as the narrator you hear at the start of the film and then again, about ten minutes or so before the end. In the opening sequence he reads out the appearing messages which, frankly, the audience can read way quicker than him (Posing the question... why do both? Just pick either a voice or typography), telling the audience that they are the detective. We have a certain amount of time to follow the clues, such as they aren’t, and work out not so much whodunnit but... who is the werewolf.
And then we go into a long, ploddy opening sequence where Calvin Lockhart is being hunted by Anton Diffring, trying to infiltrate a country home while the latter uses state of the art security mechanisms he has on the grounds and surrounding forest, to have his small army locate Lockhart. I have to say, the musical score here, provided by Douglas Gamley, is working as hard here as it does the rest of the movie to try and add pace to visuals which are, despite being nicely composed and clean looking, lacking any kind of oomph to them and threaten to just get into dullsville territory really quickly. Indeed, my big criticism of the whole movie is that the pacing is way too dull but, that being said, it’s still somehow a quite fun and watchable movie.
Due, I suppose, to the slight undertones of blaxploitation, Gamley’s score is a full on funky stew of wah wah guitar and cool beats but, it has to be said, it sounds more like what Laurie Johnson might have provided for an episode of The New Avengers... if the plot of an episode of that show had involved lots of porn scenes of Joanna Lumley and Patrick MacNee getting loved up for the duration. In other words, it kinds of works contrary to the style of the film but sounds great and, yes, it’s a damn shame the soundtrack to this one has never been released commercially on CD... I’d be first in line to grab one.
Anyway, the whole opening turns out to be a trick to fool the audience, when it turns out it’s Lockhart testing his new security advisor and system. But why does he need such state-of-the-art security you might ask? Well, because he’s a world famous, super rich hunter and all the guests he’s invited for a long weekend (the three nights when the moon is full) have been around violent death of some sort. So he naturally assumes one of them is a werewolf (of course, who wouldn’t, right?) and in best Zaroff style, he wants to hunt the biggest game of all. Only this time man is not just the biggest game... man turns into a wolf, apparently.
And what a werewolf! Or should I say, where wolf?
Okay, so it really is an Alsatian dog (or German Shepherd as they used to be called before the war) dressed up to make it look more wolfy... it just looks a bit more like it’s wearing a shaggy, Shakespearean ruff, to be honest. And don’t talk to me about the transformation scenes... which are completely inconsistent with each other.
All this aside though, there were a couple of things that saved this for me. One is that the cast are all immensely watchable in this... despite Peter Cushing's ‘archaeologist/werewolf expert’ character having an absurd pseudo-Swedish accent that seems to rob him of all his inherent dignity. It’s nice seeing this lot bouncing off each other and, often, over acting somewhat... each one holding their own against the others.
Secondly, there’s the revelation after... the Werewolf Break. Okay, so around ten minutes before the end, the film stops and we see a ticking clock counting down thirty seconds, superimposed over footage of each suspect’s face as Valentine Dyall invites us to reveal who we think the werewolf is. Presumably to whoever was sitting next to us in the cinema... did anyone get into a dating situation as a result of this film? And then, after... a werewolf is revealed. And it wasn’t who I thought it would be but, rather than be surprised, I was immediately incensed and blurting out why that person couldn’t possibly be the werewolf... when they were seen actively trying to repel it earlier in the movie. And then I realised... oh wait a minute, that means... and yes, there is a second (and also a third but that’s a different issue) werewolf revealed who makes, maybe a little more sense. And I still hadn’t got it right and that’s just fine for me. The few films I see where I can’t accurately predict the ending from early on always win big score points from me and... such is the case with this beast of a movie.
So there you go. The Beast Must Die is a slow and dull affair which still manages to generate a sense of fun and watchability and I certainly am glad I invested in this lovely Blu Ray transfer of the film from Severin. I can easily see myself watching this again at some point and it’s a perfect ‘middle of the evening’ movie for an all nighter with a crowd of friends, for sure. Yes, having one of the guests playing Moonlight Sonata on the piano at one point is possibly a little over the top in terms of reminding the audience it’s a werewolf movie when Lockhart’s character already does that literally every five minutes but, I dunno, I forgive it all this because it’s a bit of a low key romp and something I would definitely recommend to a certain section of my friends... although it’s certainly not for all of them and I suspect modern teenage audiences may find the pacing a bit of a turn off, truth be told.
