The Beast Must Die! Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		1.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.0

The Beast Must Die! Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 8, 2018

Note: This film is available as part of the box set The Amicus Collection.

The recently reviewed Hammer Horror: The Warner Bros. Years makes an interesting point in passing that, as iconic as Hammer Films’ horror outings undeniably were, there were other studios pumping out product whose features were at least occasionally mistaken for being Hammer productions, when in fact they weren’t. Probably prime among these examples would be Amicus Productions, a British institution that was nonetheless founded by two Americans, Max Rosenberg and Milton Subotsky. Rosenberg and Subotsky themselves had a somewhat infamous Hammer Films connection, having (according to Rosenberg, anyway) come up with the project that ultimately became The Curse of Frankenstein, a 1957 opus that was Hammer’s first horror outing in color, Hammer’s first “reboot” of a venerable horror character, and arguably the film that set the tone for what became a decade or more of Hammer’s preeminence in the horror genre. Subotsky and Rosenberg were kind of pushed to the sidelines on the project, receiving no credit, and (again according to Rosenberg) even handing over their meager $5000 payday to Ray Stark in exchange for a promised partnership which never manifested. There was obviously some kind of discord associated with this film, at least from the perspective of Rosenberg (who’s on hand in some archival interviews in this set, disparaging both Hammer in general and Eliot Hyman in particular), something that may have led to Rosenberg and Subotsky deciding to set out on their own when they could hopefully be captains of their own fate.

Kind of interestingly, then, while Subotsky and Rosenberg had gotten into the horror game before the creation of Amicus with the 1960 film The City of the Dead (note that the link points to a British release), their first two outings in their guise as Amicus Productions were quasi-musicals designed to appeal to the teen set, It's Trad, Dad! (directed by none other than Richard Lester) and Just for Fun. While Amicus occasionally varied outside of its largely self imposed horror limits, including with a couple of Doctor Who related feature films, Dr. Who and the Daleks and Daleks — Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D., the studio is arguably best remembered today for its so-called portmanteau features, films which typically included four or five at least tangentially linked stories into one film. The first of these portmanteau efforts was 1965’s Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (note that the link points to a German release, though it’s region free and I personally found the technical merits better than the domestic release from Olive). That film set the portmanteau template for Amicus, where typically some kind of framing story would link the “episodes” contained within the film, and that’s pretty much exactly what one of the films in this new Amicus set (Asylum) does. Kind of interestingly, though, the two other feature films in the Amicus Collection are the somewhat rarer outings from Amicus that offer only one narrative thread for the entire film. Of those other features, one (And Now the Screaming Starts) is the really rare Amicus offering that traffics in what had been Hammer's stock in trade, Gothic horror.

Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians (which many will know began life under a much more ignominious name) remains the author’s most popular work in terms of sales, and certainly one of the most identifiable properties in the entire annals of mystery literature. Christie’s story has been adapted countless times for various media, including a slew of films such as And Then There Were None, Ten Little Indians, Gumnaam, Nadu Iravil, Aatagara and Ten Little Indians. That last named film had a kind of cheeky, almost William Castle-esque, gimmick as it catapulted toward its climax, with the audience being given a little “time out”, called “the Whodunit break” in marketing materials, to decide who the culprit might be. There’s something rather suspiciously similar on tap in The Beast Must Die!, a film which like so many others owes at least some of its provenance to Agatha Christie’s immortal thriller about people trapped on an island, but this particular film is a really odd casserole that combines a glut of ingredients that include obvious references to The Most Dangerous Game , while also working in a somewhat bizarre werewolf angle and (just for good measure) a kind of Blaxploitation aspect that also includes a thumping Shaft like score. If that’s not enough to pique interest, The Beast Must Die! may simply not be your cup of tea, but the sad fact is even with all of these patently gonzo plot elements in play, the film is kind of listless and never develops much suspense.

Tom Newcliffe (Calvin Lockhart) seems to be a prisoner in a wilderness littered with high tech paraphernalia like closed circuit cameras and microphones, in a rather brisk opening sequence, but it turns out he’s actually the owner of all the gizmos and is preparing for a little “party”. Heading the operations center for all the technological wizardry is Tom’s right hand man, Pavel (Anton Diffring). When Tom’s guests have assembled, he informs them that one of them is a werewolf and the get together has been designed in order to ferret out who it is. As with so much in this film, there are acres of unexplained context and background, but The Beast Must Die! just kind of soldiers on, showing Tom’s repeated efforts through a series of tests to determine who the werewolf might be.

The “suspects” include at least two kind of fun casting choices, namely Peter Cushing as a werewolf expert and Michael Gambon as a concert pianist. But none of the characters is ever explored or developed well enough to really be all that captivating, something that makes the eventual expiration of several of them kind of “blah” feeling. This film’s “whodunit break” is actually a “werewolf break” here, allowing the audience to guess who is the “Larry Talbot” of this enterprise.

The Beast Must Die! Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Beast Must Die! is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Severin Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. It's perhaps meaningful that the brief blurbs about the transfers included on the back of each of the releases included in The Amicus Collection arguably provide at least a little more info than the generic "restored from vault elements" that adorns the back cover of The Beast Must Die! This is probably inarguably the worst looking of the three feature films in the Amicus set, and whatever the "vault elements" were, they were evidently in pretty shoddy condition as evidenced by the lackluster look of this presentation. While age related wear and tear is fairly recurrent, that at least is understandable. The odd softness and even blurriness that are a regular feature of this transfer keep detail levels fairly minimal, even during some extreme close-ups. Contrast is variable, and a lot of the darker scenes have blacks that tip into blue territory. Some midrange shots are so fuzzy looking that virtually all facial characteristics simply look like moving blobs of color. Grain approaches noise territory regularly, and some of the compression anomalies are pretty unusual looking, with weird swarms overwhelming things like white fabrics. The fact that Severin is evidently not offering this as a standalone release apart from the box set may indicate that the label knew that this was a less than stellar looking release.

The Beast Must Die! Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Beast Must Die! features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono mix that is actually rather surprisingly boisterous, at least when compared to the lackluster video component. Douglas Gamley's score, obviously influenced by Isaac Hayes, struts through the soundfield with some authority, and both sound effects and dialogue are presented without any of the variances and damage seen in the visuals.

The Beast Must Die! Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• And Then There Were Werewolves (1080p; 18:35) is an appealing audio essay by Troy Howarth which plays to a wide array of stills of folks like Agatha Christie and lots of ad campaign material from various films, along with a brief clip from this film at the end.


• Audio Commentary with Director Paul Annett is moderated by Jonathan Sothcott. There are some fairly prevalent mix issues here, where the film's soundtrack tends to overwhelm the actual commentary.


• Directing the Beast (1080i; 12:58) features Paul Annett again.


• The Beast Must Die! Trailer (1080p; 1:00)

The Beast Must Die! Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

For those considering picking up The Amicus Collection, it may well be best to think of The Beast Must Die! as a "bonus disc", though how much of a bonus may be up for debate. This is easily the least technically pleasing of the three feature films included in the set, but Amicus completists may want to check it out simply because it's such a weird combo platter of plot elements.