The Beast Must Die. I’ve been looking for this Werewolf Whodunnit for a while, and after watching Ten Little Indians, I felt inspired to go look once more- and I didn’t have to look far since it’s on Shudder.
Simple, classic premise: a group of people is gathered at a country house for the weekend, and their host announces that one among them is a killer- only this time, a killer werewolf.
It’s from Amicus, which is like Hammer-lite, in 1974.
Calvin Lockhart plays the host, a self made millionaire hunter who’s going for the most dangerous game of all. His guests include Peter Cushing, Charles Gray, and Michael Gambon, all mainstays from Hammer.
The Beast Must Die works best as a crazy whodunnit, because as a horror film, it has issues, mostly with effects: lots of blue filter day for night filming and the werewolf… well, it’s a gussied up German Shepherd.
There’s also a swingin’ hip score that’s THERE during the first sequence of the movie, but thankfully fades less intrusively into the background.
As I’m writing this, another aspect of the movie occurs to me- there’s no sex, no profanity. The Beast Must Die is a terrific, watch-it-with-the-kids starter film for genre loving parents who want to start the kids on the scary but don’t want to go too terrifying to begin with.
It’s a fun film, and were there not so many other films out there to watch, I’d consider giving The Beast Must Die another go, if only to see how it holds up as a mystery.
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