You know you're in a bit of trouble when a film starts off with padding. And not just a little bit... The Beast Must Die kicks off with a full 10 minutes of an entirely needless chase through the woods. A couple of minutes would have been sufficient. When you have no idea who is being chased (or who is doing the chasing) - unless you have some seriously kick-ass action (which this film doesn't), the only possible end result is boredom, plain and simple.
So you've got 10 minutes of a man being chased through the woods - he's being chased by helicopters, trucks, and men on foot. And there is some guy in some control room somewhere, who is leading the whole thing. The man being chased looks up, and sees cameras in the trees - or looks down and sees microphones on the ground... the whole area is covered and under watch. But when the guy gets caught? The pursuers just point their guns at him and let him go. Intriguing? Or boring? I'd suggest the latter...
Anyways, this guy getting chased is Tom Newcliffe (Calvin Lockhart) - a fabulously wealthy man who has just had this fancy surveillance system installed on his sprawling estate grounds. He's a big time hunter, and just wanted a first person look at what his prey may be looking at if they were on his property. What prey, you ask? Apparently, he's hunted just about everything his heart desires... but now has his sites set on the elusive (and maybe not even real) werewolf.
So, he's invited a half-dozen people to his estate for the weekend - a weekend where there happens to be a full moon. Newcliffe has done his research. Given the circumstances any one of his guests could be a werewolf - they are all global travelers who have been present in cities where there have been mysterious, unsolved murders. So Newcliffe, along with his friend/hired-gun/werewolf-expert Dr. Lundgren (Peter Cushing), is hoping to have one of them turn into a werewolf... and then kill them. Sounds like a nice weekend! And even though some of the guests are kind of like "hey, I don't want you to maybe kill me," Newcliffe is kind of a dick and doesn't let them leave.
I think the filmmaker's/distributors/whatever knew they had a stinker on their hands with The Beast Must Die - there's this little gimmicky bit in the beginning where a Vincent Price impersonator says the following:
This film is a detective story -- in which you are the detective. The question is not "Who is the murderer?" -- But "Who is the werewolf?" After all the clues have been shown -- You will get a chance to give your answer. Watch for the "werewolf break."
This just tells me they felt the film couldn't stand on it's own - and it can't. It's mostly boring, the werewolf is just a dog with some carpet wrapped around it, and there is no tension to the proceedings at all. It's just pretty bland and boring all the way around. A kind of okay (but downer) ending can't really save the tedious 80 minutes that came before it.
The highlights? The afore mentioned ending, and the "werewolf break." The Vincent Price impersonator comes back and says "can you guess who it is? You have 30 seconds..." And then we get stills of all of the possible suspects, with a ticking clock superimposed over them. It's a stupid gimmick, but at least it made be laugh. Also, there's a guy that kind of reminds me of Chris Elliott, so that's something.
But everything else is pretty rough. The really boring chase through the woods is matched by a really boring car chase about half an hour later. The car chase seems to take forever too. Honestly, by the time you're halfway through the film, you've been subject to not one but two poorly done and unexciting chases. Not a good way to get the audience on your side. Even Peter Cushing is pretty boring here - he's just not given all that much to do. He kind of gives a little background on the werewolf (here, a werewolf can't even touch silver, which is a new one to me), but he honestly seems disinterested. He gets top billing on the box-art, but it's certainly not his film.
According to the imdb trivia, Robert Quarry (Count Yorga!) was originally cast as Newcliffe, but the role was given to Lockhart (a black man) to cash in on the blaxploitation craze. And honestly, Lockhart is pretty much the only good thing in the film. He's fun enough as the kind of crazy Newcliffe, and injects what life he can into the film - but there's only so much one man can do. The script is just kind of weak - I don't think The Beast Must Die ever really stood a chance. And once they just decided to go "dog w/ carpeting" over "werewolf makeup" for the big bad, this thing was dead in the water.
Oh hi doggie!
Breed: Yellow Lab, I think?
Function: He is Newcliffe's dog - although his wife seems to care for him way more. Eventually, he seems to be around to bark at, and eventually fight, the "werewolf." Apparently (thanks again imdb), The Beast Must Die is the first film to feature a dog fighting a werewolf. Unfortunately, it only highlights the fact the the werewolf is very obviously just a German Shepard.
Fate: Doesn't make it. Is "very badly hurt" by the vampire, and Newcliffe shoots him.
So overall, there just isn't anything to really get into in The Beast Must Die. It's boring all the way around. It's competently shot and put together, but it can't overcome a story that just kind of sucks.
I would not recommend this film.
No comments:
Post a Comment