It’s a shame this DVD is coming out in the middle of summer because it’d be a terrific Halloween treat. It's kind of a Agatha Christie whodunit mixed with some MOST DANGEROUS GAME, and a healthy dose of old fashioned werewolf horror and a dash of blaxploitation, which makes it an enjoyably dated bit of spooky hokum perfectly suited for the autumn chill of All Hallows Eve. Produced by the British studio Amicus in the early 70s, BEAST is very much of its time and place. With its litany of recognizable British genre actors (Peter Cushing, Charles Grey, Anton Diffring, etc.) and its terrific proto-disco funk score, the movie is a shiny little pop gem that is silly and inconsequential but a whole lot of fun, like a lot of British horror and genre movies made during that decade.

Wealthy industrialist and heartless big game hunter Tom Newcliffe (Calvin Lockhart) has conquered the business world and tracked and killed every sort of dangerous animal imaginable. But one sort of prey has remained elusive ... A Werewolf! And in a plot construction only found in this kind of genre (and their literary inspirations), Tom has gathered a group of wealthy socialites at his remote English country estate, all of whom have connections (perhaps circumstantial, perhaps not...) to a series of brutal cannibalistic murders. An artist (Tom Chadbon), a pianist (Michael Gambon) and his mistress (Ciaran Madden), a disgraced diplomat (Charles Gray), a lycanthropy obsessed archaeologist (Peter Cushing), and Newcliffe’s wife (Marlene Clark) make up his full moon weekend guest list, with one of them being, he’s sure, a werewolf. That would seem to be pretty sketchy logic to me, but it turns out that he’s dead right.

The film's more exciting bits concern Tom hunting the wolf during the nights, using state of the art (for 1973) surveillance equipment operated with military precision by an espionage expert (Anton Diffring). These sequences achieve a breathless and suspenseful momentum interrupted only by the somewhat ragged looking werewolf itself, which is a German Shepard with an extra fur coat covering his neck and back. Still, even that isn’t too much of a distraction. On the whole, THE BEAST MUST DIE has a nice 70s PG-rated horror atmosphere, with some surprising bits of gore to tide you over while it engages in some talky exposition. One of the more interesting aspects is the central casting. Tom Newcliffe is a black man. Probably Lockhart was cast to cash in on the blaxploitation boom, but it lends the flick a racial friction that underlies the somewhat cliché mechanics of the plot. Lockhart gives the strongest performance, and while it completely lacks in subtlety, the scenery is chewed up in a maniacal and thrilling manner, leaving the rest of the cast barely any room to breathe, much less act. That said, Cushing’s performance must also be singled out. He doesn’t get much to do other than lecture, but he gives off a suitably calm, authoritarian air that forms a fine balance to Lockhart’s enthusiastic raging.

All in all, this is a nice little chunk of English horror nonsense. As an added bonus, it even sports a gimmick. The movie plays a game with you, as a narrator at the start queries, “Can you figure out who the werewolf is before the Werewolf Break?” And then sure enough before the climatic final 15 minutes, the film literally breaks and asks you one final time if you’ve figured it out, reviewing the suspects and even giving you a 30 second countdown to propose your answer. A silly, cheap William Castle-esque device to be sure, but it works, in that it makes the proceedings seem to be a little more than just a low-budget spook-show. Instead, it's a clever little puzzle that involves the audience in an unusual and witty manner, and it forces the viewers to resolve the riddle on their own.

Part of Dark Sky Films new line of restored Amicus titles, THE BEAST MUST DIE is given a terrific and thorough presentation with a smattering of fine, informative extras. The movie is presented in its original 1.78:1 aspect ratio and has been given a rich, lovely digital restoration that probably makes the film look better than it did even in ‘73. To compare, check out the original American theatrical trailer included in the special features. Ragged and drained of color and life, this is how BEAST has probably looked for years and years I’d assume, when caught on the late show or via a typically substandard 80s VHS release. Other extras include an informative interview and feature length commentary by director Paul Annett, who’s worked mostly in television post-BEAST, but seems down to earth about his time at Amicus and generally fond of the film and his experience making it. Well written cast bios and trailers for the other Amicus releases round out this worthy entry in the British horror cannon. And while I couldn’t say that THE BEAST MUST DIE is any sort of mind-blowing cinematic experience, it’s wholly entertaining and engaging, worthy of the fine presentation Dark Sky has given it. Have you figured out who the werewolf is?