Paul Annett

(On Cable TV, June 2022) There’s something almost endearing at the showmanship of William Castle-inspired filmmakers that deliberately broke the fourth wall of film in order to draw in their audiences. So it is that The Best Must Die begins with a dare to the audiences: we’re told it’s a mystery in which one of the characters is a werewolf, and the film will stop at some point to ask audiences to guess which character it is. What follows is a surprisingly conventional film that’s often better in concept than execution: a wealthy man bringing together a number of people in his isolated British estate, where they have to guess which one of them is an actual werewolf. At some point, the film indeed stops to ask the big question during its “werewolf break,” and if you’re guessing that this was all a device added in post-production, you’re right – and film history records that director Paul Annett hated it. But it does add a certain grandiose panache to the result, adding to the rather cozy isolated-manor mystery. Playing with the usual tropes of the subgenre, The Beast Must Die does have a few interesting moments and performances – including lead roles for black actors (Calvin Lockhart and the beautiful Marlene Clark) in an otherwise white-cast British film, some deliciously over-the-top moments and Peter Cushing to deliver some tasty exposition. The Beast Must Die is not that good (if you’re expecting werewolf transformation special effects, look elsewhere) but it is decently fun, and the “Werewolf Break” certainly plays into this kind of fun all right.