There must have been some primo, top quality hallucinogenics flying around the sets of British set horror flicks during the 70s as such studios such as Hammer and Amicus came up with ever trippier concepts to try and stay afloat. But while the former obviously thought it had achieved the pinnacle of head scratching mash-ups by combining a classic vampire movie with the Kung Fu genre with The Legend Of The Seven Golden Vampires, Amicus countered it in the same year with The Beast Must Die, a film that not only blended the Werewolf and Blaxploitation genres together, but threw in a sizable lump of Agatha Christie style mystery for good measure as the movie aggressively demanded that you *yes you!* help figure out the true identity of the lycanthrope.
Not so much a whodunit than a Howl-dunit, The Beast Must Die may play its concept to its fullest, but does this mean this actually translate into some form of quality or is this mental experience just another shaggy dog story?
Meet eccentric millionaire Tom Newcliffe, a man who loves big game hunting so much, if it has a heartbeat, he’s probably shot it. However, he’s set his eye on far stranger prey as he tricks out the grounds around his rural English mansion with CCTV cameras and hidden microphones in preparation to luring in something special in order to track and kill it. After he and his tech savvy associate, Pavel, are satisfied with their results, we find out that he’s invited a group of five random people to spend the next three nights with him and his wife, Caroline. The first is self important, disgraced diplomat Arthur Bennington and he’s joined by the husband and wife team of pianist Jan Gilmore and his former student – now wife – Davina. Making up the rest of the guests is foppish artist Paul Foote who recently did a stint in jail and finally there’s Professor Lundgren who is not only an archaeologist but weirdly an expert on lycanthropy which proves to be extremely useful when Tom reveals why everyone has been invited.
That’s right, Tom has reason to believe one of these people is actually a werewolf in hiding and vows to smoke them out in order to get a chance to blow away the ultimate prey; the thing is, the leather clad trophy collector has no idea which one of his guests has a habit of sprouting excessive hair and fangs and ripping out throats and he only has three nights of a full moon to make his decision. As incriminations fly and Tom gets ever more desperate in his quest to weed out the truth (and shoot it), the ever more bizarre behavior of some of his guests keeps throwing him off no matter how much wolf’s bane and silver he keeps thrusting at his suspects.
But never mind Tom; with the fast approaching “werewolf break”, can you, the viewer, figure out who the wolf in sheep’s clothing by yelling it out in the screen as obnoxiously as you can? Miss Marple never had to put up with this shit.
From the impossibly fun, yet slightly patronising voice over in the begining that takes the time to explain to you exactly what your detectorial responsibilities are as you just try and watch a werewolf movie in peace, to the absolutely stunning wardrobe that clothes the oh-so-fly Tom Newcliffe as he tries to figure out this mystery by simply accusing everybody simultaneously, it’s a real shame that The Beast Must Die is let down by some real shoddy execution. Since it’s release in 1974, there have been other mystery movies directly concerning figuring out the secret identity of a werewolf such as the excruciating Howling V and fantastic Werewolves Within, and yet while director Paul Annett manages to tease out the absurdity of the script with relative ease, my enjoyment of this lightning strike of unadulterated camp was marred by the fact that if a bit more care and attention had been applied, this could have been a truly amazing movie.
The absolute best thing about The Beast Must Die is the fact that for the entirety of its run, Calvin Lockhart’s extravagant Newcliffe continuously looks like he’s simply walked to the wrong set that morning but no one has bother to tell him. Obviously relishing playing a black millionaire who strides round his palatial mansion with a white streak in his afro and an all in one leather jumpsuit, I genuinely got the feeling that Lockhart walked so Wesley Snipes’ Blade could run and it’s made even better by the fact that the actor attacks every line with everything he has whether it needs it or not. What’s also incredibly amusing is that despite his weakness for sequined shirts with little moons on them and the fact that even his hot mama of a wife has no idea what he’s up to (why focus on bagging a wolf when you have a complete fox right there?), Newcliffe doesn’t actually seem to be particularly gifted at this whole detective thing and his method literally seems to be to scream directly into the faces of bemused white folk.
However, while the frenzied overacting of Lockhart is a genuine treat, most of the other cast seem too confused about the plot to put in much of an effort. Tom Chadbon’s suspiciously hairy, hippy artist is appropriately spaced out enough to reach Lockhart’s ramped up hysteria, but the likes of Charles Gray and Michael Gambon (two veteran scene stealers if ever I saw them) seem to be disappointingly phoning it in leaving Ciaran Madden no choice to look demure and confused while good sport Peter Cushing is left to deliver almost non-stop exposition in what I think is supposed to be a Swedish accent.
However, what proves to be most disappointing is that the film seems to be so content to just be weird as fuck, it doesn’t try to put much actual effort in being particularly smart or scary, which is a bit of an issue if your supposed to be making a horror/murder mystery. Night time scenes are either smothered in impenetrable gloom or filmed with such awful day-for-night techniques that it often looks like it’s actually two o’clock in the afternoon as any sense of atmosphere refused to build. An then there’s the werewolf…
While I won’t spoil the identity of the lycanthrope here (that werewolf break has to count for something, right?), the fact that this terrifying, murderous, creature of evil is realised by the filmmakers literally sticking an adorable German Shepherd in a big, shaggy coat which not only proves to be as terrifying as a baby hippo (it’s fucking tongue won’t stop hanging out for a start), but it’s violent attacks genuinely looks like it’s rearing up for hugs, or at the very least, a good old ear scratch. Yes, it’s absolutely hilarious, but it also torpedoes any hope the film has of reaching its potential of being something special.
As daft as – well, the sight of a German Shepherd in a big fuzzy coat, The Beast Must Die is certainly huge fun to make fun of, but while I’m a great lover of movies that wear their eccentricities on their furry sleeves, the fact that Amicus dropped the ball on an idea that had some true potential is the biggest mystery of all. We could have had one of the most daring werewolf movies of all time and instead the studio just delivered an actual act of lunar-cy.
🌟🌟
We Have Issues 