The Beast Must Die

Starring:Calvin Lockhart, Peter Cushing, Marlene Clark, Anton Diffring, Charles Gray, Ciaran Madden, Tom Chadbon, Michael Gambon, Sam Mansary, Andrew Lodge, Eric Carte, Carl Bohen, Valentine Dyall, Annie Ross, Bill Mitchell
Director: Paul Annett
Studio: Dark Sky Films
Product Type: DVD

Description

Wealthy big game hunter Tom Newcliffe (Calvin Lockhart) has tracked and killed practically every type of animal in the world. But one creature still evades him, the biggest game of all - a werewolf. Tom invites five guests -- Dr. Christopher Lundgren (Peter Cushing), Paul Foote (Tom Chadbon), Bennington (Charles Gray), Jan Jarmokowski (Michael Gambon) and Davina (Ciaran Madden)-- to his island knowing they all are tied one way or another to unusual circumstances of death… and that one of them is a werewolf. Add to the mix Tom's alluring wife Caroline (Marlene Clark) and surveillance expert, Pavel (Anton Diffring), Tom tracks the werewolf but is unable to kill it. One by one the creature kills the isolated guests.

Customer Reviews:

A Werewolf, Weakly.......2007-04-28

"THE BEAST MUST DIE" is proof that hindsight is indeed a cruel mistress and that time is not kind to all things - - i.e., it's super-dated and pretty darn dull. Here's what I see as the pros and cons of this disappointing flick...

BAD:
- A main character (Calvin Lockhart) who, aside from his fabulous wardrobe and forceful, hectoring line delivery, comes off as nothing better than an obscure James Bond villain.

- Peter Cushing, normally awesome, but wasted here as an ineffectual secondary character who speaks in dubbed-sounding, clipped Teutonic verse.

- The rest of the cast (including Michael Gambon and Charles Gray) who are given little to do but bloviate and posture lazily for the camera.

- A nonsensical plot and stupid 'guess the werewolf' gimmick, both of which are rendered pretty pointless by the time the garbled, makeshift ending unspools.

- A monster/werewolf/trained dog that is even slightly LESS impressive/scary than the pooch from "DEVIL DOG: HOUND OF HELL". Not a compliment.

- Bad atmosphere, with crappy day-for-night shooting and the same generic 'on-location' type of setting used in multitudes of other 70's Euro-horror productions.

GOOD:
- cheezy, out-of-place 70's funky 'waka-chika' music.

- and, uh,... not much else, really.

I actually like bad horror movies, so I didn't TOTALLY hate sitting through this, but I'll probably never feel the urge to watch it again, either. I'd say this is definitely the least compelling of Dark Sky's Amicus DVD releases -- the other (and much better) ones being "ASYLUM" & "AND NOW THE SCREAMING STARTS".

It's not over 'till ya pull that trigger boy.......2006-11-28

This is a landmark movie for a number of reasons;
1. It is the WORST werewolf movie of all time
2. It is the WORST Amicus movie of all time
3. Its is the WORST film Peter Cushing ever made- although he is still good in it.

Amicus have produced some great genre pictures throughout the 60's and 70's. The House the Dripped Blood and City of the Dead are two of my personal favorites. In their hayday Amicus made brilliant films under the direction of many of Englands finest genre directors such as John Moxely and Roy Ward Barker (a Hammer regular).

This film isn't fun, isn't entertaining, contains lackluster direction and a 'star' who hams it up and chews through his scenes like a galloping Elephant. Oh, and the 'wolf' is literally a dog with a wig. "That's allright i bet your thinking. The director was probably clever and shot it with inventive camera angles/clever lighting and edited the film carefully so that you never see too much." WRONG. It looks like a dog wearing a wig. DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME WITH THIS!!!! If you want to see a good english horror film then go watch City of the Dead, Circus of Fear, The Wicker Man, Scars of Dracula...infact pretty much anything!

Loved Peter Cushing . . ........2006-11-10

but hated this movie. What a silly premise - a big game hunter getting together people who happened to be in the vicinity of mutilation attacks on humans - and then he tells them that one of them is a werewolf and that he's going to kill it!!!??? Then, one by one each guest is systematically killed. The movie could have ended 1 hour earlier (I think it's 1 hour 30 minutes long), and had the same, tiring outcome. Very monotonous, and tedious. I wouldn't recommend it.

"One of you is a werewolf !".......2006-09-04

I am a huge fan of werewolves, so THE BEAST MUST DIE DVD was a mandatory purchase for me. Let me assure you THE BEAST is one of the most unusual movies starring a furry predator in the history of film.
The movie's hero is a rich big game hunter, who invites several guests to his remote English mansion. Now rich big game hunters are not unusual in movies, although I bet you rarely have seen a black one, and while he looks like a refugee from one of the SHAFT movies, he has an odd British accent (movie director Paul ANNETT comments in an interview in the extra features section that the character was an effort to cash in on the then popular blaxploitation genre and reveals that actor Calvin LOCKHART was unhappy with the role and felt it unfitting for a black person).
His guests are an odd bunch too, consisting of a lycanthropy scholar (the late great Peter CUSHING, one of Britain`s finest actors), a former diplomat (Peter GRAY, who played 007's nemesis BLOFELD in DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER), a hippie painter and a neurotic concert pianist and his girlfriend. All of them have some skeletons in the closet, and our big game hunter suspects one of them to be a lycanthrope - "One of you is a werewolf!" he announces to his guests and tells them, he will find out who and kill him.
Despite our hero being aided by high tech video and microphone surveillance of the mansion and the surrounding area, a helicopter, and a whole silver bullet firing arsenal, the bodycount soon starts to rise once the full moon shines from the dark nocturnal sky and tensions mount among the survivors. Everybody is suspicous. Can you guess who the werewolf is? And who will survive his rampage?

Now, admittedly THE BEAST MUST DIE is not very scary, but it is charmingly oldfashioned and unusual enough to keep you interested. Yes, the "werewolf" is clearly a German shepherd dog with a big attached fur (specifically evident in a scene were the "werewolf" fights our hero's dog), but personally I did not find it unintentionally funny. Wisely the "werewolf" is seldom shown and mostly relegated to the shadows. Don`t expect a horror film, think of it as a kind of Agatha CHRISTIE like murder mystery with a werewolf. There are lots of red herrings, wrong clues and some quite good unexpected plot twists toward the end (don't worry, I will not spoil them). And of course there is the well-known gimmick of this film, the "werewolf break" - it is so well known that I don't regard it as spoiler to mention it (towards the end the picture freezeframes and to the sight of a superimposed ticking clock you got 30 seconds to figure out who of the remaining suspects is the werewolf). A great idea!
The cast is great, particularly Peter CUSHING as werewolf expert and Anton DIFFRING as surveillance guy Pavel. Overall it is an entertaining fun film that will appeal to fans of murder mysteries and werewolves alike!

I also enjoyed the extra features, which include the film's excellent trailer as well as trailers for ASYLUM and LET THE SCREAMING START. There is also a good picture gallery, consisting of about 20 or so movie stills, posters and lobby cards. Another interesting extra feature is an interview with director Paul ANNETT, where he fondly remembers working with CUSHING, expands on the "werewolf" scenes, expresses interest in a remake, and loathes the "werewolf break" gimmick. There are also excellent liner notes.
Great cover artwork too! I give kudos to Dark Sky Films for this excellent DVD release!

"In this world you're either the hunter or the hunted.".......2006-08-03

From Dark Sky Films comes the DVD release of The Beast Must Die (1974), part of their `The Amicus Collection' DVD series (two other films, so far, include 1973's And Now the Screaming Starts and 1972's Asylum), which I was very excited to see for two reasons, the first being I don't think Amicus has really gotten its due over the years (overshadowed by their competitor Hammer Studios), and the second being my past experiences with Dark Sky Films have been good ones as they seem to put forth an exceptional effort in their DVD releases. Directed by Paul Annett ("Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected"), the film stars Calvin Lockhart (Uptown Saturday Night, Predator 2) and Peter Cushing (Twins of Evil, The Creeping Flesh, Star Wars), who frequently appeared in both Amicus and Hammer film releases. Also appearing is Marlene Clark (Beware! The Blob), Charles Gray (Diamonds Are Forever, The Rocky Horror Picture Show), Ciaran Madden (Swing Kids), Tom Chadbon (Tess), Michael Gambon (Toys, Layer Cake), and Anton Diffring (Circus of Horrors, Fahrenheit 451).

Lockhart plays Tom Newcliffe, an obsessive, wealthy big game hunter who invites a small group of individuals under false pretenses to his isolated country estate as he's out for the biggest game of them all, a real live werewolf...you see, Tom believes one of his guests is, in fact, a werewolf, and he's scheduled their stay during time when he knew there'd be a full moon in the hopes that the individual afflicted would transform allowing Tom the hunt of a lifetime. As the story begins we see some of the precautions Tom's taken in fortifying his estate with security measures including a helicopter, armed guards, hidden cameras and microphones, underground sensors, and so on, all installed and maintained by his security specialist Pavel (Diffring). After revealing his true intent to his guests (most all, including his wife Caroline, played by Clark, think Tom is a bit nutty) and ensuring none can leave, the fun begins as the full moon rises...sure enough, one of Tom's guests is a werewolf, as evident by a large dog draped in a chintzy fur begins prowling the estate. Despite Tom's technological edge, he's unable to pin down the beast (or discern which one of the guests has a penchant for howling at the moon), and things get tense as various individuals meet their untimely demise (Pavel makes a new friend). As the guest list dwindles, Tom gets closer to discerning the real identity of the lycanthrope, but this is definitely one of those occasions where one must be careful what they wish for as the beast seems not only intent on protecting its identity, but its need to consume human flesh seems to be growing to the point where no one is safe...

While I did enjoy this film, some elements didn't work out all that well for me, the main one being the mystery portion of the story. At the beginning of the film a narrator announces this is a detective story and that we, the audience, are responsible for discerning the identity of the beast (near the end there's what's called a `werewolf break', in that the story stops, a clock appears and the audience is instructed to pick whom they believe the beast before it's actually revealed). The problem was I don't believe there were any actual clues (plenty of misleads, though) that pointed towards one individual over another, so it seemed sort of pointless to expend energy on trying to figure out who the killer was, and better to just let things run their course (which I did). I wouldn't have commented on this but the film made such a big deal about it up front. Another element that bothered me slightly was the character of Tom. He was depicted as being a hunter extraordinaire, yet he seemed to have little issue using all kinds of technological hardware to track the beast, which felt like cheating to me...seems to me a certain amount of pride would be involved, and I would think a real hunter would eschew such a huge edge (Tom had the entire estate, including the surround grounds, rigged for sight and sound), instead relying on his own, extensively honed abilities, but given the beast was of the supernatural kind I guess one could make the argument perhaps he viewed using technology as a means to even the playing field (keep in mind I'm not a hunter, so this is speculation on my part). I guess, in the end, it didn't really matter as all his gadgetry didn't really assist him all that much. I did learn quite a lot from this film, including the following...

1. Hunters seem a tightly wound lot.
2. Given a chance a werewolf will eat your eyeball.
3. Drinking and archery don't mix.
4. You can simulate a werewolf by strapping a chintzy fur on a large dog.
5. Paul can't climb a tree for spit.
6. For an expert hunter, Tom is an extremely rotten shot.
7. Dogs and werewolves (or, at least, dogs wearing fur coats pretending to be werewolves) don't get along.
8. Caroline was sure attached to that dog.
9. If you need to pad out the running time in your film, an extensive and relatively pointless car chase sequence will certainly help.
10. I like hearing Peter Cushing using the word `Transmogrification' in a sentence.
11. Tom may have nearly his entire home rigged with video cameras, but he's no voyeur.
12. If you ever get invited for a weekend getaway by someone named Tom Newcliffe, it's probably for the best you decline the invitation.

As far as the things I liked about the movie, well, the inclusion of Peter Cushing seemed a good idea. His part may have not been all that much, but I do enjoy seeing him whenever I get a chance. As far as the rest of the performers, most did well enough although Lockhart seemed a bit overly dramatic at times, even given his character's obvious obsession. At least he was interesting to watch. There is no real werewolf, in terms of a beast creature running around on two legs with fangs and claws coming out the wahzoo, but only a dog dressed up to look like a really hairy dog. I didn't mind this much as the story kept me engaged as once it gets going, it's pretty tight. There was a little bit of violence and a small amount of blood. My favorite bit in the film comes after Tom, frustrated with his inability to bag the beast, returns to the house and fires off a round in the main hall, apparently in an effort to draw the attention of his guest, one of whom he's certain is the killer. As the guest emerge from their rooms, one of them, a somewhat effeminate, snidely artist type named Paul (Chadbon) makes the following off the cuff comment..."It's like living in a shooting gallery." All in all a fun film with a few flaws, but if you're an Amicus fan (like me), this is worth getting.

The picture on this Dark Sky Films DVD release, presented in anamorphic widescreen (1.78:1), looks very clean and the Dolby Digital 2.0 mono audio comes across well. Special features include liner notes by Christopher Gullo, a commentary track by director Paul Annett, a still gallery, extensive cast and crew biographies, a thirteen-minute featurette titled `Directing The Beast!', and a trailer for this film along with two others, one for And Now the Screaming Starts (1973), and another for Asylum (1972).

Cookieman108

Just a note, this film was previously released onto DVD by Image Entertainment, but the version I reviewed was released by Dark Sky Films and features Peter Cushing on the cover.

The Beast Must Die (Black Werewolf) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.0 Import - Australia ]

Average customer rating:

The Beast Must Die (Black Werewolf) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.0 Import - Australia ]
Director: Paul Annett
Manufacturer: Umbrella Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Product Description

Australia released, PAL/Region 0 DVD: it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada. LANGUAGES: English (Dolby Digital 2.0), SYNOPSIS: Tom Newcliffe, a rich businessman and expert hunter summons six guests to his huge country estate which he has rigged up with video cameras and a high-tech security system. He tells them and his surprised wife that they are all to stay over a weekend and that all of them will be kept on the estate during that weekend. For each guest, dead bodies have followed in their wake and the way that the dead have been murdered means that one of the guest is a werewolf and Tom has summoned his guests here to discover who it is and to hunt it down... The film has a clip at the beginning asking people in the audience to try to identify the werewolf and near the end there is a 30-second 'Werewolf Break' for the audience to think over the evidence... SPECIAL FEATURES: Trailer(s), Interactive Menu, Commentary, Cast/Crew Interview(s),

Average customer rating:

A Werewolf, Weakly
It's not over 'till ya pull that trigger boy
Loved Peter Cushing . . .
"One of you is a werewolf !"
"In this world you're either the hunter or the hunted."

The Beast Must Die
Starring: Calvin Lockhart , Peter Cushing , Marlene Clark , Anton Diffring , and Charles Gray
Director: Paul Annett
Manufacturer: Image Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Horror | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Genres | DVD | Video

Science Fiction | Kids & Family | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Mystery & Suspense | Genres | DVD | Video

( B ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video
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ASIN: B00005ABVT
Release Date: 2001-04-10

Description

Wealthy sportsman Tom Newcliffe has bagged every sort of big game trophy, except one--a werewolf! Newcliffe has summoned six guests to his isolated country estate for the weekend. Once they have arrived, he announces that one of them is a werewolf and they are all part of a deadly game he has devised. The game will end when the moon is full and the cursed soul is hunted down and killed. Horror superstar Peter Cushing leads the cast in this edge-of-your-seat chiller that will keep you guessing right up to the last blood-curdling scream--a must-see for fans of mystery and the macabre.

Customer Reviews:

A Werewolf, Weakly.......2007-04-28

It's not over 'till ya pull that trigger boy.......2006-11-28

Loved Peter Cushing . . ........2006-11-10

"One of you is a werewolf !".......2006-09-04

"In this world you're either the hunter or the hunted.".......2006-08-03

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