A millionaire/lunatic hunter named Tom Newcliffe (Calvin Lockhart) has pretty much blown entire his fortune installing a state-of-the-art security system on his massive estate. He didn’t do this because he fears intruders, no no, he wants intruders, but especially ones of the lycanthrope variety. One could blame this on harmless eccentricity except Newcliffe has invited a group of suspected werewolves to his home for the weekend and naturally, he plans to kill one of them. The fun and games come to a quick end once he disables their cars thus trapping them on the property so that they may undergo a series of tests to see who might just be the beast!

Amicus Productions was very busy in 1974 with this film, Madhouse, starring Vincent Price and Peter Cushing, and From Beyond the Grave, with Cushing and Donald Pleasence, all dropping within months of each other. Darn it to heck, I need to watch these three in a row sometime. Anyway… The worst thing I can say about The Beast Must Die is that it’s not your typical werewolf movie. Don’t expect a Larry Talbot or Waldemar Daninsky to show up, wolf out, and go on a rampage. That’s totally fine but I feel the need to say something because that damn poster art is so misleading!

A big draw for this film is its insane cast list. Thirty years before Dumbledore, Michael Gambon is here, as is Peter Cushing, who played Snape’s grandfather in my fan film (which will be out once I get the rights issues sorted). Anton Diffring plays Newcliffe’s yogurt-eating and rather overconfident head of security. He’s always awesome, but I really love him in offbeat stuff like The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire (1971) and Jess Franco’s Faceless (1987). Another prolific character actor, Charles Gray is also in this. He and Diffring strip down and start mud wrestling in a deleted scene (not really).

Depending on who you ask, one trend that Amicus may or may not have chosen to jump on was the burgeoning blaxploitation genre. One look at Calvin Lockhart’s head-to-toe black leather ensemble makes me think they were at the very least extremely aware of the success of Shaft (1971). The wildly talented Lockhart of Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970) plays the lead with aplomb, and the energetic and lovely Marlene Clark of Slaughter (1972) plays his love interest. Although the racial subtext is there -the film opens with an intentionally misleading scene of a bunch of white military dudes chasing Newcliffe around- The Beast Must Die doesn’t dwell on the main character’s race in the dialog. Lockhart rocks in the role of a man possessed by a really, really terrible idea. He’s not out to help society by dispatching a werewolf, instead he’s only in it for the glory and to stroke his own ego.

Directed by Paul Annett, a veteran of British TV, and written by Michael Winder, this is a horror whodunnit (more like Awooooooodunnit!) a la Agatha Christie and hell of a good time. I really love the music score by Douglas Gamley, it’s got just the right amount of lounge-y jazz and disco freshness. The Beast Must Die is a fine slice of hucksterism (the film pauses to give you a chance to guess the identity of the werewolf before the conclusion) and a kooky version of a locked-room mystery. Highly recommended. Don’t bother with the ill-conceived parody film called The Beast Must Diet, released in 1976, because it doesn’t exist.

This 2020 Blu-ray of The Beast Must Die (according to what I’ve read) is a vast improvement over the one in Severin’s Amicus boxset, released in 2017. It looks and sounds excellent to these tired old eyes. What’s completely crazy here are all these extras. First up is a trivia-filled audio commentary track by director Annett and filmmaker Jonathan Sothcott. Next is a video essay by author Troy Howarth about the origins of the mystery genre and how a film like The Beast Must Die came to be. There are excellent interviews with Annett and two audio interviews with producers Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg. The audio is a bit rough but listenable. There’s a trailer for the film with optional audio commentary by Kim Newman and David Flint.

Director – Paul Annett
Cast – Calvin Lockhart, Peter Cushing, Marlene Clark, Charles Gray
Country of Origin – UK
Reviewer – Richard Glenn Schmidt