The Beast Must Die review.
Let’s travel back in time nearly 50 years for this cycle’s Full Moon Feature. The Beast Must Die is an Agatha Christie novel that her editor would have said needs to pick up the pace.
Classic movie reviews will contain spoilers.
The Beast Must Die
Directed by Paul Annett
Screenplay by Michael Winder
Starring Calvin Lockhart, Peter Cushing, Marlene Clark, Charles Gray and Anton Diffring
The Beast Must Die Review
This is our ninth Full Moon Feature on the site. Over the course of the previous eight full moons, we’ve covered some comedies (Teen Wolf, Werewolves Within), some classics (The Wolf Man, Dog Soldiers, Silver Bullet) and some…oddities (Werewolf by Night, Teen Wolf: The Movie). This month we’re going to look at something more unique (at long as we ignore that Werewolves Within is the same basic concept) …a werewolf whodunnit! Or…more accurately, a werewolf whoisit!
The Beast Must Die is a 1974 movie that is heavy on the mystery…and light on the wolf. It wouldn’t have been surprising to see Benoit Blanc walk on screen to tell us who the werewolf was in his infamous Foghorn Leghorn accent. Well…I guess it would have been a little surprising since Daniel Craig would only have been six years old at the time. But you must admit that accent would have been adorable.
When I tell you that The Beast Must Die is an Agatha Christie novel disguised as a werewolf movie…I want you to understand my full meaning. The bulk of the film is spent with a group of suspects in a remote location…one of whom is believed to be a werewolf. If you replace the world “werewolf” with “killer” you have the plot of every Agatha Christie story that I’ve never read. Ok…so that’s a guess…but you know what I mean. Instead of having fun transformation scenes and wolfy chaos…this is a whodunnit in wolves clothing.
Actually…it does have one interesting twist on the concept. In lieu of a detective walking the grounds uncovering clues to solve a murder…we, the viewer, are tasked with discovering who is really a wolf in disguise. The Beast Must Die even pauses at the end of act 2 to give us 30 seconds to log our guesses as to who will be revealed as the werewolf. Other than the half minute break…it’s just the viewer waiting for the movie to tell us who it is.
There’s a clever concept at the core of The Beast Must Die. As mentioned, Werewolves Within makes a comedy out of the set-up. It also has far more life than this movie does. A lot of sitting around long tables and in smoking rooms discussing the situation…that’s what you’ll get here. The movie is too boring to make the most of the idea. It’s so beholden to the mystery aspect of the story that it doesn’t make room for much fun. That is until the climax.
Thankfully, after we start to get some revelations, things pick up considerably. Unfortunately, The Beast Must Die still isn’t much of a werewolf movie even after the wolves come out to play. Yes…wolves. In a twist that you’ll either find fun or annoying (or won’t care by that point) after we find who our wolf has been…we discover that someone had recently bit them and there is another wolf on the grounds. It worked for me in a “well…at least something’s happening now” way…but really kind of spits on the whole point of the movie.
There’s also no transformation scene to speak of. Like Silver Bullet, the best we can get is a reverse transformation of a dead werewolf morphing back to human form. Before that we see some harry hands and then a cut to a wolf. These aren’t Wolf Man like werewolves…they’re full-on wolves running around. We get to see far too little of them. The best scenes in the movie either involve a wolf attack midway through…or the climax as wolves are running about (though without much actual action).
Annoyingly, the inciting reason for the whodunnit is also better than the movie ever plays with. In an update of The Most Dangerous Game…Tom (Calvin Lockhart) wants to hunt the one creature he’s never been able to bag. A werewolf. He gathers a group of people together with the belief that one is a werewolf, and they will reveal themselves by the end of the full moon. We get a brief wolf hunt at the end of the movie…but nothing close to the level of what it could be. An action packed whodunnit with some werewolf hunting? Sign me up. Instead, The Beast Must Die just pours another cup of tea and has a conversation about it.
I can’t say it’s not a worthwhile exercise. We get some deaths…and some reveals. If you’re invested in the whodunnit aspect of the film…this is a fine, if slow, version. There are decent payoffs too. Tom discovers that his wife Caroline (Marlene Clark) is a wolf…and finally gets his bittersweet kill. They later find that she had only recently been infected with the curse and Tom hunts down the actual wolf, Jan (Michael Gambon). The movie ends on an extra somber note when Tom is bitten by the wolf and must use the final silver bullet on himself. To recap…they asked us to determine who the wolf was and then gave us two…followed by a third. All while keeping the wolf and the fun offscreen.
The Beast Must Die is a movie with pretty much no rewatchability…but it’s kind of interesting the first time through. Or…well…if you’ve read this review, it’s probably not worth it anymore. Sorry about that. It does have a great cast and a funky score that is fun to listen to. If anything, it’s a movie begging for a remake. Add in the transformations, wolf attacks and wolf hunting…you’ve really got something. This isn’t quite it.
Scare Value
Werewolves Within was smart enough to recognize that people sitting around talking about werewolves wasn’t enough to make for a successful moving picture. The Beast Must Die didn’t quite figure that out. The third act finally gets things moving…but it’s a bit of a chore to get there. An interesting exercise. Not a great werewolf movie.
2.5/5
The Beast Must Die Links
Streaming on Screambox and Tubi
Rent/Buy on VOD from VUDU and Amazon
Buy on Blu-Ray from Amazon
The Beast Must Die Trailer
If you enjoyed this review of The Beast Must Die, check out Viking Wolf
