Directed by Paul Annett, 1974, 93 minutes, Rated PG
Where wolf?
Here’s a funny thing that happens when you start reviewing movies long enough: You start recalling obscure films you saw way, way, way back. It’s on par with discovering a long-forgotten and assumed-lost toy from your childhood. The memories are hazy at best, but the feeling – the “This is so cool!” factor – remains vivid.
This was the case with The Beast Must Die, a werewolf film I’d watched once when I was 10 or 12 some rainy afternoon. Again, I remember the broad strokes of the premise and the overall feeling (“Cool!”), but nothing more. The film popped back into my consciousness not too long ago, but like many obscure films from the ‘70s, it was nowhere to be found. Every few months, I’d peak around the Internet for any trace of it, but no luck.
Then, suddenly, there is on Amazon Prime. Sweet!
In defiance of the title, The Beast Must Die opens with a ‘70s groove that wouldn’t be out of place in a Hanna-Barbera production. We watch an extended chase sequence where a Secret Agent Man escapes through a forest from a small army of henchmen. He’s having a tough time of it – there are surveillance cameras and hidden microphones everywhere – but that’s by design. We quickly learn that the our Secret Agent Man – actually a wealthy big game hunter named Tom (Calvin Lockhart) – is testing out a state-of-the-art security system for his mansion and grounds. It seems like overkill to security expert Pavel, but Tom has his reasons.
Tom and his wife, Caroline, have invited a handful of renowned acquaintances (including Peter Cushing and a young Michael Gambon!) to their mansion for the weekend. Tom reveals that of all his hunting expeditions, there’s just one creature that has alluded him: a werewolf. And with all of the guests’ skeletons involving grisly murders and/or cannibalism (!), Tom is confident that one of them is a werewolf. The question is who…
That’s right: The Beast Must Die is set up as a mystery, making it unique among werewolf movies. Here’s the opening text, accompanied by suitably creepy narration:
This film is a detective story – in which you are the detective. The question is not 'Who is the murderer?' – But 'Who is the werewolf?'
The gimmick comes complete with an awkwardly titled “Werewolf Break,” where the film literally halts to allow the audience to consider the past 80 minutes and parse out clues.
Much of the film is spent slowly doling out suspicions. This one tried to escape the mansion! That one has really hairy hands! Tom lays it on thick, putting out bushels of blooming wolfsbane, prompting Peter Cushing’s Dr. Lundgren for quasi-scientific mumbo-jumbo, and serving the bloodiest prime rib ever put to film. An interesting quirk to the film is that, while on paper it would seem that Tom is our protagonist, he absolutely antagonizes his guests (and his wife – she’s under suspicion, too) to the point where he feels like the villain of the piece.
Then, by nightfall, the full moon rises and Tom goes on the hunt. Unfortunately, for such a reputed big game hunter, Tom is a terrible shot. While the werewolf is attacking a helicopter pilot, Tom fires to save him and misses… hitting the grounded helicopter. That promptly blows up (this is a movie, after all). Also, it turns out that all of Tom’s state-of-the-art security is no match for a German Shepherd in a shaggy overcoat.
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| Werewolf? |
Okay, I’m teasing a bit, but given the film’s budget and the alternative at the time (usually a stuntman with yak hair rubber-cemented to his face), it works just fine. And during werewolf attacks, it definitely adds a sense that the person is fighting off a beast.
My biggest beef with The Beast Must Die is that it does a terrible job with the actual mystery aspect. It would have been great if Tom used armchair detective-style deductive reasoning to reveal the identity of the werewolf, thus showing the viewers that clues that had been planted throughout the film. Nope. Instead, Tom makes everyone put a silver bullet in their mouth – a practical approach, but one that undercuts the whole “you are the detective” conceit.
Still, there are a couple of nice twists that turn up very late in the film, and it’s a fun approach on what can be a very formulaic sub-genre. Anyone interested in a different take on a werewolf movie will find things to enjoy in The Beast Must Die.
***
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