Monster of the Day #263

Updated on May 27, 2011 By Ken Begg 24 Comments


Behold raw terror!

Boy, this movie could have been so much better than it was. The amazing cast in particular is almost completely wasted. Why don’t they remake films like this, that had a decent plotline, but weren’t made well?

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  • The Rev.

    Awwww, puppy! Who’s a good puppy? Is it you? Yes it is! Yeeeees it is!

  • roger h

    I wanna go walksies.

  • Gamera

    If this is the movie I think it is it’s the first one this week I’ve seen. If so it’s not really a ‘black’ film but one whose main character is a black werewolf hunter.

    I think…

    Maybe…

  • roger h

    oh, I thought it was “Black Lassie” from the Johnny Stash (Cheech & Chong) song.

  • zombiewhacker

    Dumbledore wants Beggin’!!!!!!!!

  • Rock Baker

    The Beast Must Die? Been a while since I saw that one. I remember enjoying it, should watch it again soon. I know its not Devil Dog: Hound of Hell (another one I should watch again).

  • Gamera

    That’s what I was thinking it is Rock. Millionaire has a bunch of characters played by great B-movie actors come to his mansion and he announces that he believes one of them is a werewolf and he is going to smoke the monster out. On paper sounds like a great film but somehow it just seemed kinda ‘blah’ to me.

  • zombiewhacker

    There’s a big problem with the premise at the outset. Calvin Lockhart suspects that any one of his guests could be a werewolf.

    Okay, fine.

    But if any of them are potential werewolves, then why can’t they all be werewolves? (Think Kurt Russell-style paranoia in The Thing here.)

  • Gamera

    Oh yeah! If ALL the guests had turned into werewolvies it would have been a much more exciting movie!

    Maybe if the black millionaire guy had been played by Mister T he might have had a chance…

  • roger h

    There is probably some sort of ecological predator to pray ratio that prevents too many werewolves from gathering in one place. . .

    wait a minute, you guys are right, wolves hunt in packs, why are werewolves always so solitary? They are half monkey and monkeys are social animals as well.

    zombies don’t even cooperate much and they are always in packs.

  • “If so it’s not really a ‘black’ film but one whose main character is a black werewolf hunter.”

    Ah, but there is a black werewolf in the movie, though. But yes, it’s certainly not a ‘blaxploitation’ films like the others.

  • Rock Baker

    First time I saw The Beast Must Die it was a 16mm print that was turning red, and I guess a TV print. I later got a VHS copy and was quite amused to find the film origionally had a break to let the audience mull over who the werewolf is. I need to watch it again, but it seems like I remember the film being fun drive-in fare.

  • Gamera

    Sorry, guess I should have been more specific and used the term ‘blaxploitation’ rather than just ‘black’ film.

  • fish eye no miko

    roger h said: “why are werewolves always so solitary?”

    Having read reviews and recaps of the Twilight movies, it seems like Meyers’ werewolves live and hunt in packs. So… something she actually got right. O_O

  • The werewolves in The Howling pack. So do (if I recall correctly) the ones in American Werewolf in Paris.

  • roger h

    cool, i don’t think i ever saw the howling, netflix it. may have had it mixed up with wolfen.

  • sandra

    I was very disappointed by The Beast Must Die. I had read the original story ( There shall Be No Darkness by james Blish ) and thought it could be the basis for a good movie. And so it could, TBMD isn’t it. The most interesting thing in it was the sight of a youngish Dumbledore.

  • zombiewhacker

    Yeah, I think it’s cool that Gambon has gone to fame with Dumbledore, because it just kicks the cast’s interest level up to the next level. They already had Cushing, Diffring, and Charles Gray.

    Calvin Lockhart was an OK choice for the lead. But I can think of dozens of others who might have done better by the role. For obvious reasons, William Marshall comes immediately to mind.

  • Sandra – Out of curiosity, how close is The Beast Must Die to There Shall Be No Darkness?

  • fish eye no miko

    zombiewhacker said: “Yeah, I think it’s cool that Gambon has gone to fame with Dumbledore”,

    Yeah, I saw this movie after PoA–in fact, probably after even GoF–so I was like, “Hey, Dumbledore!”

    “They already had Cushing, Diffring, and Charles Gray.”

    It also features Tom Chadbon, who played two different characters on Doctor Who. I mostly remember because one of those characters was the wonderfully violent Duggan from “City of Death”. The other was a guy in “Trial of a Time Lord”.
    /Cool story, sis.

  • Anyone interested in Gambon (which should be everyone) MUST check out the original Singing Detective miniseries. Seriously one of the very best things I have ever seen.

  • sandra

    The movie only uses the story’s basic situation of a house party where one of the guests is a werewolf. The host is not a big game hunter who wants to bag a lycanthrope. The story is interesting in that it offers ‘scientific’ explantions for traditional werewolf lore: werewolves have an overactive pineal gland, for instance.

  • Flangepart

    Aw, who’s a cute widdel hell hound, ya you are!

  • Flangepart

    Aw, who’s a cute widdel hell hound, ya you are!

    D’OH. Rev, I didn’t read your post first. It still works, mind you…