Here is a first-rate DVD from Dark Sky Films of a second-rate slice of 1970s silliness that should appeal to horror fans in search of historical curiosities. Based on the novella "There Shall Be No Darkness" by James Blish (author of the short story adaptations of STAR TREK), this Amicus production comes off as a cross between Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians, Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game," and Michael Wadleigh's flawed screen version of the Whitley Streiber novel Wolfen.

The film begins with a narrator informing us that at a key moment in the film we are about to watch there will be a "werewolf break" during which we'll be given the opportunity to guess which character is secretly a werewolf. We are then introduced to Tom Newcliff (Calvin Lockhart), a millionaire who wears his hair in an afro and runs around his wooded estate in leather outfits straight out of SHAFT'S BIG SCORE while his employees hunt him with guns(!). Newcliff has gathered a half dozen of his friends, one of whom he believes to be a werewolf, for a weekend of parlor games. Among the more notable suspects are Dr. Lundgren (Peter Cushing in an annoying German accent), Arthur Benington (Charles Grey), and Jan Jarmokowski (a pre-HARRY POTTER Michael Gambon). Even Newcliff's wife Caroline (Marlene Clark of GANJA & HESS and SWITCHBLADE SISTERS)isn't above suspicion. Newcliff has rigged his entire estate with video cameras and intends to draw out his werewolf guest so he can hunt him/her down like a mad dog.

As entertainment, the film is bad in all the right ways, from a jazzy score that belongs in a 1960s private eye TV series to an over reliance on camera zooms to some of the most vision defying day-for-night cinematography I've ever (not) seen. It's way too talky due to its numerous drawing room scenes, but at 92 minutes it delivers what it needs to and I credit director Paul Annett and cinematographer Jack Hildyard with a number of striking images, particularly a POV shot of the werewolf through a skylight. There are no transformation sequences, just cutaways to a dog made to look like a big black wolf (BLACK WEREWOLF was the film's alternate title); hard to believe that a mere six years later Rick Baker and Rob Bottin would make startling transformations a requirement for all subsequent werewolf pics.

For all its deficiencies, THE BEAST MUST DIE! may have been somewhat influential. The hilarious "werewolf break" at the 75-minute mark telegraphs a similar gimmick used on the short lived ELLERY QUEEN TV series starring Jim Hutton one year later. A sequence in which Newcliff hunts for the werewolf in the woods at night, with his chief of security barking into an intercom, "He's right on top of you!" informed a similar scene in ALIEN with Tom Skerritt bug stomping through the spaceship Nostromo's ducts. And a bit in which Newcliff forces each of his houseguests to suck on a silver bullet to reveal the werewolf's identity paved the way for Kurt Russel to test the blood of his comerades in JOHN CARPENTER'S THE THING (although I believe that plot point was actually created by John W. Campbell in "Who Goes There?").

Dark Sky goes above and beyond the call of duty with their packaging as usual. The film is letterboxed and features trailer for it and other Amicus films ("ASYLUM--the most exciting film you will ever see!"), a photo gallery that is actually worth viewing, a commentary by Annett, who directed TV before helming this flick and returned to that medium for a distinguished career that continues today, and an interview with Annett which includes a hilarious anecdote about a meeting with Vincent Price and Peter Cushing. As I noted in my review of their DVD of Dan Curtis's TV adaptation of FRANKENSTEIN, Dark Sky is performing a great service for horror film historians with their ever expanding catalogue of obscure titles.