The Beast Must Die (1974)

A very, very young Dumbledore (Michael Gambon), a guy from Jodorowsky's Tusk and Circus of Horrors (lord have mercy on our souls), The Criminologist who narrates between some Rocky Horror Picture Show scenes, and classic horror superstar Peter Cushing (T-t-t-tales From the Crypt) star in a Clue-like whodunit where one of the dinner party's guests is a werewolf. A narrator explains this to us, sloooooooooowly, and presents it like it's a gameshow before kicking into a helicopter tour of northern England and some Get Smart music.

We ride around in the helicopter that was taking the aerial shots, which is tracking a guy as he runs through the farmland and woods. It is assisted by a surfer jeep full of men with rifles and Polaroid cameras tied to the trees, while the guy from Tusk monitors from a remote control center. They catch the guy, and then release him, because this is some The Most Dangerous Game type of shit. They catch-and-release him over and over, as we start to lose a grip on what the hell this film is about.

Finally, we cut to the hunted guy, Tom, now in the control room, where we learn that he's buying an advanced tracking system based on a giant network of cameras and microphones, and some other crazy sci-fi stuff, all paired with cool flashy lights in this big control center. The first scene was him trying it out to make sure it works. He says it will help him hunt "the biggest game of all," in reference to The Most Dangerous Game that I just referenced, except he means werewolves (the narrator already told us).

Tom invites a bunch of undesirable rich people, all of whom have some vague murderous background and are dressed like they're going to be on a 60s folk music album cover, to his palace, which is decorated like a Greek temple. He introduces their vague homicidal backgrounds, and announces that one of them is a werewolf. It cuts abruptly to his bedroom where his wife is disapproving, and he tells her he'll shoot her if she's the werewolf.

Suddenly we're in a car chase, but don't know why. First-person shots through the windshield of the jeep as it drives through dense forest are actually pretty cool, unlike the rest of this scene and film. The lively Pink Panther jazz is alright, but not fitting to the scene. At least, I don't think it's fitting, but I don't know what the scene is about or why it goes on for so long.

The guy who installed the security system, Pavel, just sticks around and becomes Tom's sounding board. He's from an unnamed country where werewolves are quite common, and moved to England to get away from them, but later says he doesn't believe in them. He and Tom spy on the rich people wandering through the palace and gossip about them. In each scene they reiterate that Tom believes one of them is a werewolf, but doesn't know which one, in case you forgot in the last two minutes.

At dinner, the Doctor from the Crypt gives us a long, drawn-out, and detailed description of what a werewolf is and where they come from. Dumbledore makes everybody touch a silver candlestick. The doc blathers about wolfsbane, and then we cut to Tom in his wolfsbane greenhouse, and somebody throws a tomahawk at him. The crazy security system doesn't seem to help here.

They deliver their lines one-by-one, staccato, with long pauses between each sentence. It sounds weird and unnatural, and let's us really linger on how stupid some of the lines are, but it's certainly not the worst acting. In terms of filmmaking, it's pretty 1970s-mediocre across the board.

Tom removes his shirt and puts on a form-fitting, shiny, black leather coat, because he loves the 70s. He fails to hunt the werewolf, and warns Pavel in the control room that the werewolf is coming for him. A cute puppy dog appears on the roof, jumps through the skylight, and Pavel screams. Cowboy Bebop music kicks off as Tom runs to the control room to find Pavel's eyes ripped out and the tracking system demolished.

They do the exact same silver candlestick bit again, to no end. Then he hears a wolf howl outside, grabs his silver-bullet-loaded fully-automatic rifle, and jumps into his helicopter for an aerial pursuit. He finds the cute black puppy immediately and fires wildly with the thousands of rounds in each little clip. They land, the wolf eats his golden retriever and helicopter pilot, and he misses with the machine gun so many times that his helicopter explodes. In short, the director should not have attempted action scenes.

"THIS. IS THE WEREWOLF BREAK. Have you guessed who the werewolf is?" asks the narrator in the upsettingly stupid one-minute long pause 15 minutes before the end of the film. There's a 30 second countdown timer while nothing happens, presumably because you've been so caught up in the gripping excitement that you forgot to solve the mystery. Unlike in Clue, there haven't actually been any clues, so he's right about it being a "guess."

They do the silver bit again, this time putting silver bullets in their mouths. This time, Tom's wife cries before putting the bullet in her mouth and turns into a cute puppy dog. Tom kills her, as promised.

The Doctor from the Crypt points out that lycanthropy is a blood-transmitted disease, and that his wife probably wasn't the original. Someone conveniently has his throat ripped out at exactly this moment, confirming the doc's theory. Tom runs outside and wrestles a cute puppy in the driveway, killing it and watching it fade from wolf to blackface to Dumbledore. Tom got bitten in the action, announces it overdramatically, and finally hunts truly The Most Dangerous Game of all: himself.