I watched this 1974 Americus Production, “The Beast Must Die” on Svengoolie. This British horror film, made at Shepperton Studios, Shepperton, Middx, England, was directed by Paul Annett (English film and television director). A millionaire big game hunter invites a group of people to spend some time at his English mansion knowing that one of them is a werewolf. He plans to find out which one is the beast and hunt them down.
The movie is based on the story “There Shall be no Darkness by James Blish (Science Fiction and Fantasy writer, wrote a series of Star Trek novelizations with his wife, is is credited with the term “gas giant” to refer to large planetary bodies). The narrator for the film is Valentine Dyall (he was the Black Guardian in Doctor Who, Deep Thought in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Casino Royale).
The stars are Calvin Lockhart (Cotton Comes to Harlem, Myra Breckinridge, Uptown Saturday Night, TV series Good Times, Starsky & Hutch, Twin Peaks), Peter Cushing (best known for Hammer horror films and Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars),
Anton Diffring (Circus of Horrors, Fahrenheit 451, Doctor Who: Silver Nemesis),
Charles Gray (You Only Live Twice, Blofeld in Diamonds are Forever, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Mycroft in The Seven Percent Solution),
Ciaran Madden (best known internationally for her multiple leading Agatha Christie, Shakespeare, and Tom Stoppard roles filmed for television,
Marlene Clark (Lemont’s girlfriend in Sanford and Son), Michael Gambon (Tv’s Sleepy Hollow, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 &2, Kingsman: The Golden Circle) and Tom Chadbon (Juggernaut, Tess, Casino Royale, Game of Thrones).
I liked the movie and will give it 2.5 out of 5. I guessed wrong at the “Werewolf Break”, when they stop the film and encourage you to guess who the werewolf really is. For more information read Wikipedia, IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes.
