Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

MoPoshy Absolutely brilliant

ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Stoutor It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Michael_Elliott The Beast (1975)** (out of 4) Lucy (Lisbeth Hummel) comes from a wealthy family and she has agreed to marry MathuriN (Pierre Benedetti) a man whose once proud family finds themselves at a low point. Soon a variety of sexual perversions come to light when the young lady visits the man before their wedding.Walerian Borowczyk's work has always been quite controversial and it strike a certain core among film buffs. Some see THE BEAST as a masterpiece while others just see it as a perverted piece of trash trying to pass itself off as an art movie. The first time I watched this movie I hated it with a very strong passion. I honestly thought it was nothing more that a cheap porno with a very dark and rather ugly bit of perversion.I wouldn't say my feelings changed too much with the second viewing but at the same time I did enjoy the film much more and I think it's because I accepted the fact that it was a rather stupid film with a certain black humor. I mean, the final thirty-minutes is pure perversion and features all sorts of scenes where the Beast "gets off" on a woman he has captured in the woods. These pornographic sex scenes are just so laughable and unlike anything you've seen before that you can't help but get some mild entertainment out of them. Of course, these scenes will have many hitting the eject button but I guess you could argue that any sort of reaction is a good thing.The performances for the most part are good but there's no question that it's the bizarre atmosphere created by Borowczyk that people are going to talk about. I think the film is way too slow and way too long for its own good to e a complete success. The first portion of the film drags on for no reason and scenes involving the horse porn is here for no other reason than to shock. THE BEAST is unlike any other film you've seen, that's for sure, and that's the one thing that keeps it somewhat watchable.

MisterWhiplash Here's a curio: a film that takes as its basis not so much Beauty and the Beast (though if you want to read into it that way have at it), but, well, a kind of bestiality. I say 'kind-of' since I'm not totally sure still what the director, Walerian Borowczyk, was really getting at with his story of a woman who comes to a French villa and is set to marry a man, only to have (at least to her) smoking-hot fantasies of a woman getting raped by some beast in the woods fully sexually aroused. He tries to make a story around some of this, mostly involving an old man, the patriarch, trying to keep a family secret under wraps as blackmail from some other old guy in a wheelchair. And meanwhile a woman with two kids that aren't really hers drifts in and out of the house having all-too-brief sex with the black servant.Did Borowczyk really want to set out to make an actual story here with Lucy Broadhurst and her hunger for the "beast", or did he want to make a story out of the corruption and deceit at the house with the centuries-old de l'Esperance? I ask these questions not so much because I don't entirely know the answers but because the film doesn't give me a reason much to care. Borowczyk can't direct his actors much well for anything, and watching those scenes of dialog plod on- and with the DVD released by C.A.V often the subtitles dip out for long stretches and the English dub track is so horrible as to want to run for the hills- is excruciatingly boring. I didn't give a damn about any one character at all, not even the assumed protagonist, Lucy, or what happened to her sexual longing.The one saving grace of the film could have been the sexuality of it, the eroticism. On this score the director only marginally gets some interest-points. The opening scene sets the theme: horse-sex. Yes, folks, if you ever wanted to see a stud and a mare, this is where to look, technically, legally-speaking. But when it comes time to do metaphor, like with the black servant and the woman and their sex, the comparison is too obvious. There's some fun to be had with the really, really badly costumed beast (is it a dog or bear or wolf or all of the above?) chasing after the 18th century woman Lucy sees in her sex-dream, but not enough to keep it going. Borowczyk is probably more comfortable directing actual pornography - later credits include Emmanuele - and so when trying to do a scene that is meant to be scintillating, it barely passes by (better is seeing Lucy try on a see-through blouse).

Scarecrow-88 I could just imagine director Walerian Borowczyk giggling behind the camera at how his film skewers and jabs Catholicism(..preferably priests, hinting at their lascivious secrets)and graphic displays of bestiality with this hairy beast banging a duchess in the dreams of a wealthy heiress, Lucy Broadhurst(Lisbeth Hummel). Pulling no punches and knowing no boundaries, Borowczyk allows the viewer to watch a grand display of this monstrous beast's semen oozing pecker, growing longer as it sets it's horny sights on this poor female running for her life in the wilderness, attempting to escape. Throwing caution to the wind, we watch as the beast rips away her clothes until the woman is almost completely naked, before positioning her and engaging. Then, the icing on the cake is her beginning to enjoy it. Folks, this kind of sequence obviously isn't for the easily offended and is as tasteless and raw as my description sounds. Lucy, having the dream about this encounter, gets so worked up she wishes to have sexual intercourse with the man she plans to wed, a pagan named Mathurin(Pierre Benedetti) whose "true nature" will soon be revealed at the end after a tragedy opens up a secret that has plagued the I'Esperance family for two centuries. Through a book created by a member of the I'Esperance, a (in)famous duchess, the Marquis(Marcel Dalin) of the I'Esperance manor for which Mathurin lives with his overbearing father Pierre(Guy Tréjan)introduces Lucy to the tale of her vanquishing of a beast. Inside a case, the Marquis even shows Lucy and her Aunt Virginia(Elisabeth Kaza)a torn piece of clothing, worn by the duchess, with claw marks. Through this knowledge comes the dream which comes to Lucy that night, with her so heated by the experience she is overwhelmed with ecstasy, watering down her naked body(underneath a see-through, thin gown)eventually masturbating with a rose! Is the dream Lucy has a real ordeal? Does this ordeal plague the I'Esperance family? The film shows how Pierre awaits the Cardinal's seal of approval for Lucy and Mathurin to wed(..this is needed if Pierre's son is to become tied to her inheritance)while a local perish priest(..and his choir boys, for which he keeps VERY close to him)hangs around ready for his part in carrying out the marriage. But, certain circumstances will possibly throw a kink in the works for Pierre can never truly escape his family's past mistake.Besides the graphically displayed sexual sequence of a beast ravaging a female, there's the opening scene of Mathurin watching, almost in a hypnotic state, as a male horse, hung, is guided into the "breathing" vagina of a female horse. You have the local perish priest, and his affectionate display for his two male choir boys(..always having them nearby with his arm around one or even kissing another). You have the Cardinal finally arriving, finding a photo Lucy took of the male and female horse mating, slipping it into his pocket. You have Lisbeth Hummel's rose masturbation and long stretches with her buck naked, yearning for the warm embrace of a man. So much is here, I felt, to shock it's audience into a frenzy. I think there's a specific audience who'll really enjoy this(..even aroused, maybe), but I'm not the biggest fan of watching horses copulating, or some beast ravaging a woman. But, for a film with such shocking material, it's so well made, I can't say it doesn't have it's technical merits. This film is so audacious and daring, I must admit that it's the kind of cult film certain to gain admirers along the way. I will finish by saying that the director goes out of his way to plant a continuing image in the viewer's mind, the stiff, semen oozing penis of the beast as it pursues the female victim.

Seamus2829 For anyone who has only seen Disney Productions beautifully animated version of 'Beauty & The Beast', or even Jean Cocteau's surreal fairy tale vision will be quite taken aback by this 1975 French (but with a director from Poland) version. The plot concerns a French family of fading aristocracy that is marrying into a well to do English family. The major catch is that the bridegroom is carrying an ancient curse on the family. The film also includes many flashback sequences (potentially) explaining this family curse. From the opening credits, to the very end, it's a nearly non stop erotic fun house ride, with some VERY explicit & graphic sexual content (hence the film's X rating in the U.S. in it's initial run,which is now unrated). The film's somewhat contemptuous sentiment at the ruling class will probably remind one of Bunuel's flights into similar territory. If you have a taste for the truly bizarre, and are not offended by "taboo" material, then this film may just scratch that itch for you.