the beast must die movie review

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Cush Jumbo , Billy Howle , and Jared Harris elevate a relatively soapy story in the British export “The Beast Must Die,” a six-part limited series that premiered originally on streamer Britbox in the U.K. and is now unfolding in the United States on AMC+, starting today, July 5 th , airing a week later on AMC proper. Examining the manner in which trauma and grief can lead people to make very bad decisions, “The Beast Must Die” also examines privilege and its ability to make people into monsters by giving them lives that never contain consequences. There are times when the filmmaking here underlines the mental states of its character a little too boldly, but the acting carries the project as the trio carve out fascinating, memorable people who feel completely distinct from the plot’s twists and turns. I’m not completely sure it sticks the landing, but I’ll remember these three people when the year ends, and sometimes that’s enough to make a mini-series worth watching.

Jumbo of “The Good Fight” fame plays Frances, a mother deep in unimaginable grief. Six months ago, her six-year-old son was killed in a hit and run accident on the Isle of Wight, and she’s just been informed that the police have basically run out of leads. Imagine losing your son and then imagine having to live knowing that the person who murdered him is just going happily with life. Frances decides she can’t live like that, and she sets out to find the killer herself, determined to kill him when she finds him, which honestly doesn’t take her very long.

By the second episode, Frances has not only done the job the police couldn’t do but she’s befriended a key witness from that day in a young woman named Lena (Mia Tomlinson), inveigling her way into her life with the story that she’s writing a novel about her industry. Lena’s brother-in-law is George Rattery (Harris), the kind of bullying social climber whose success has turned him into a monster. He pushes everyone in his life, including his quiet wife Violet ( Maeve Dermody ), sister ( Geraldine James ), and awkward son Phil (Barney Sayburn). As he quite simply always is, Harris is great here, turning a character who could have been a two-dimensional villain into something even darker in its realism. George drives fast and bullies people not only because he’s a risk taker but because he knows he’s rich and powerful enough that there are no real risks. Harris leans into the character, biting on each line delivery.

Meanwhile, a new detective named Strangeways (Howle, increasingly impressive with each performance) has moved to the Isle of Wight. Self-described as “a therapist’s retirement plan just waiting to happen,” not only is he cleaning up a relatively lackluster police department but he’s fleeing PTSD after the death of a colleague. He meets Frances and “The Beast Must Die” becomes a show about two people trying to get justice from different sides of the law. Will Strangeways find enough evidence before Frances does something drastic in the name of vengeance?

“The Beast Must Die” jumps in hard, pushing the emotional registers of Strangeways and Frances a bit too harshly at first with quick cuts and heated outbursts, but it gets more interesting about halfway through the second episode, in part because Harris balances the other two performers. It becomes a compelling dance between three very different people from different walks of life, and the dialogue is strong enough that the sometimes unbelievable twists are tolerable. In the end, it’s the rare pulp mystery in which the people carry the plot instead of the other way around, and that alone makes it an interesting option this summer.

Starts on AMC+ today, premieres on AMC on July 12th. Whole series screened for review.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Film credits.

The Beast Must Die (2021)

360 minutes

Cush Jumbo as Frances

Billy Howle as Strangeways

Jared Harris as George

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The Beast Must Die review – Cush Jumbo plots grief-fuelled revenge

BritBox’s first original drama is a taut thriller, with Jumbo playing the mother of a hit-and-run victim who hunts down odious prime suspect Jared Harris

I love a drama premise you can really get behind. The Beast Must Die (BritBox) follows the hunt by bereaved mother Frances ( Cush Jumbo ) for the driver of the vehicle that killed her six-year-old son in a hit-and-run on the Isle of Wight three months earlier. Partly because the police have failed to find the culprit and partly so that when she does, she can kill him. As she points out, if the boy had been killed by someone with his own hands instead of with his car, there would be a national outcry, and no one would rest until the beast was caught.

By the end of the first two episodes made available for streaming (the remaining three will drop weekly on Thursdays), Frances has followed up on clues and extracted information from repair shops about damaged bumpers. She has also befriended the emergent key witness Lena (Mia Tomlinson) by pretending she is doing research for a novel about a young woman similarly trying to make it as an actress/gig-economy worker, and is sitting down for dinner with the man apparently responsible, like an avenging angel at the feast.

Her target is George Rattery, a successful, loathsome businessman and even more successful and loathsome bully, who is married to Lena’s fragile sister Violet (Maeve Dermody). He is played by the mighty Jared Harris , continuing the golden streak he has been on ever since Mad Men with an utterly terrifying, sinister performance, done so lightly you can hardly believe how he is lighting up the fear centres of your brain like a Christmas tree.

George is nearly matched in vileness by his sister (Geraldine James), who helps poison the atmosphere in the family home she shares with her brother, Violet and the couple’s son Phil (Barney Sayburn, a young actor doing fine work as the cowed, lonely boy opening up like a flower in the sunlight of Frances’s attention, unaware of her ulterior motives).

Meanwhile, we have a more legitimate re-investigation that begins when London detective Nigel Strangeways (Billy Howle) relocates to the Isle of Wight, to try to escape the PTSD caused by the violent death of a colleague. He takes over the case files of his late predecessor at the station and finds the work done on the hit-and-run to be shoddy at best, negligent most likely, and suspiciously poor at worst. The sense of a cover-up rather than mere incompetence is beginning to creep in by the end of the episodes.

The Beast Must Die is the first scripted original drama (though it is an adaptation, by Gaby Chiappe, of a Nicholas Blake novel) from BritBox, whose content is mostly legacy stuff from the BBC and ITV. It sets the bar pleasingly high, with a stellar cast giving uniformly great performances. (Jumbo was made for grief and fury, while Howle is tremendous as a nervy bundle of torments.) It also boasts a lovely, allusive script (particularly in the scenes between Strangeways and his therapist, played by Nathaniel Parker), and a well-paced plot that only occasionally depends on slightly unconvincing breakthrough moments in Frances’s amateur investigation. It’s hard to see how such strengths will not endure in future episodes, if we can resist falling victim to George’s emotional terrorism.

With so many episodes to come, there are bound to be more complications and revelations in this revenge thriller – can we really have been introduced to the true villain so early on? However, most viewers will surely stay for them all.

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The Beast Must Die review: Britbox’s revenge thriller is unexpectedly gripping with a great cast

A troubled cop, traumatised after witnessing a colleague’s death. A mother bent on seeking revenge after her son was killed. A beautiful coastal location, boasting views begging you to stare at them through narrowed eyes. And - wait for it - a therapist with a cello in his office. The opening scenes of The Beast Must Die tick off all the classy thriller tropes and then some (there’s also a big house filled with terrible rich people and ugly sculptures).

And yet, despite the fact that BritBox ’s first original drama series has quite blatantly been carefully engineered to appeal to fans of the sort of high-end British detective series that populate the ITV/BBC-backed platform’s streaming catalogue, it’s consistently gripping viewing, elevated by its trio of lead performances from Cush Jumbo , Billy Howle and Jared Harris .

“I am going to kill a man,” Jumbo’s Frances intones as the first episode opens, with a chilling intensity to her voice. She’s recently bereaved: an Easter trip to the Isle of Wight ended in tragedy when her young son died in a hit and run accident. The local police, whose low-stakes, low-effort approach to fighting crime would almost definitely prompt a string of disgruntled catchphrases from Line of Duty’s Ted Hastings, have given up on the case. Their apathy prompts Frances to take matters into her own hands, embarking on an investigation after a tip-off from a grumpy local leads her to Lena, a beautiful, sad model with a secret (another one for the classy mystery bingo card).

Posing as a novelist working on a murder mystery (meta!), Frances manages to ingratiate herself into the home of Lena’s brother-in-law George, a wealthy, obnoxious businessman played by Harris. When he’s not verbally torturing his 13-year-old son for kicks, he drives expensive cars too fast down the island’s windy coastal paths - and there’s a suspiciously bashed-up vehicle hidden in a shed on his sprawling country estate. Could he be the killer? “If you’re smart enough to get away with something, you probably deserve to,” he tells his new house guest, at once smug and deeply sinister.

Drifting in and out of this mess is DI Nigel Strangeways (Howle), the latest recruit to the island’s police force. Grappling with PTSD after watching a fellow officer die in front of him, he slots visits to a therapist (Nathaniel Parker) in between getting to grips with his new colleagues’ laissez-faire spin on policing and surreptitiously attempting to fill in the gaps that his predecessor left in the botched hit and run investigation.

It’s a role that requires Howle to oscillate between emotional extremes at a moment’s notice. He pulls it off brilliantly - although you might, like me, find his character’s name to be a stumbling block. Howle just doesn’t look like a Nigel (though its setting is contemporary, the series is based on Cecil Day-Lewis’s novel published in 1938 - perhaps Nigels were different then).

The scenery is stunning, the soundtrack is dissonant and unnerving, and Geraldine James is clearly having plenty of fun as George’s godawful sister Joy. A consummate snob, she disappears for extended periods to have “procedures” and suggests the police are a bad lot because “they’re all foreign... or northern.” Jumbo is undoubtedly the main draw, though. As the grieving Frances, she’s magnetic, one moment floundering under the weight of her loss, the next clear-eyed and calculating, with a knack for charming her way into her target’s confidences.

Would Frances’ amateur sleuthing really reel in her target so quickly? Perhaps not, but watching Jumbo pull it off is compelling stuff. If the show’s concluding instalments live up to the promise of the early episodes, The Beast Must Die is a sign of good things to come from an as yet overlooked streamer.

Episodes one and two of The Beast Must Die are available on BritBox now

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The Beast Must Die review: Murder mystery is as original as baking Nigella’s banana bread in lockdown

Britbox’s latest original series has a nordic-noir feel that makes every long shot look like an advert for an expensive car, article bookmarked.

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If Britbox was lying on your psychiatrist’s sofa, you might suggest it had problems with originality. In its early days, the new multi-channel streamer was all  Dibley ’n’ Downton , harmless repeats for sensitive viewers overwhelmed by all the new content. Don’t worry, dear, you don’t have to watch the Netflixes, here’s Midsomer Murders . If you wanted to live in an eternal 1992 of the living room, they were your guys. Last autumn, it released its first “original” work, a remake of  Spitting Image , which was barely watchable but attracted enough coverage to get a second series.

Now it offers up a foray into original drama in the form of The Beast Must Die , a five-part murder mystery adapted by Gaby Chiappe from Cecil Day-Lewis’s 1938 novel of the same name. I say original. On the evidence of this first episode, The Beast Must Die is as original as baking Nigella’s banana bread in lockdown one. Technically speaking, it might be a new loaf, but a lot of other people have had the same idea. Not much has been left to chance.

Detective Nigel Strangeways ( Billy Howle ) rocks up on the Isle of Wight to take over from a predecessor who has died suddenly. Strangeways is a young, handsome, lonely white man, troubled by an unnamed recent disaster that he discusses, Tony Soprano-style, with his shrink. There are flashes of Hot Fuzz -style fish-out-of-water humour in the early scenes, but mostly Strangeways seems like a serious chap. The only real surprise is he is called Nigel. I blame the source text, which in other ways has been thoroughly modernised.

On Strangeways’s first day in the new job, Frances Cairns (Cush Jumbo) turns up at the station unannounced. Her seven-year-old son, Marty, was killed in a hit-and-run, but the police have told her they’ve exhausted all leads. Caught unprepared, Strangeways doesn’t have much to offer her, although he’s decent enough to feel guilty about it. Frances takes things into her own hands, assuming different identities to ask the locals what happened. She poses as a traffic monitor to learn about what was going on at the day, then as a crime novelist to befriend a surly model, Lena (Mia Tomlinson), who was apparently at the scene. In turn, she leads Frances to the Rattery family, who seemingly have something to do with Marty’s death.

The Beast Must Die is tightly written, with a measured pace and that Nordic-noir style of direction that makes every long shot look like an advert for an expensive car. The Isle of Wight has rarely looked so appealing, despite all the death and intrigue. All the leads earn their keep. Jumbo’s woman-on-a-quest is unsure if her grief is making her ingenious or deranged, but she keeps you gripped as she tries to gather information before people work out what’s going on. Howle makes Strangeways sharp without being callous. He might be from London, but he’s not all bad.

Jared Harris is hardly in the first episode, but you can tell at once that he’s going to have a fabulous time as the sinister Rattery patriarch. “Hello Frances, I’m George,” he says, letting each syllable fall to sit heavily between them. Between Mad Men , The Crown , Chernobyl , The Terror and now this, Harris’s TV work over the past decade has been as good as anyone’s. Even his turn as a mob boss in Amazon’s sci-fi The Expanse was better than it ought to have been. He brings to all his characters the sense they see more than the people around them, which can either be cruel and calculating or beleaguered and patient, as the occasion requires. It’s rare in a celebrity dynasty for the son to eclipse the father, but these days Jared is at risk of blocking out Richard.

The problem for The Beast Must Die – and this isn’t the fault of the blameless cast or crew – is that the Broadchurch format feels knackered. Maybe it’s reviewer fatigue. Perhaps there are millions of viewers sitting by their Britboxes, longing for more dead kids, more darkness lurking beneath respectable lives, more cold beaches being stared at by sad lads in long coats. I don’t think so, though. We’ve seen it all so many times. This is a perfectly polished start, but Britbox will have to take more risks if it wants to show us something new.

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The Beast Must Die

• Blu-ray edition reviewed by Chris Galloway
• October 05 2020

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Calvin Lockhart ( A Dandy in Aspic ) and Marlene Clark ( Ganja & Hess ) have invited a disparate group of guests, including Peter Cushing ( Corruption ), Michael Gambon ( The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover ) and Charles Gray ( The Legacy ), to their mansion in the English countryside. He believes one of them is a werewolf… and, before the weekend is out, he’ll find out who it is! The last of Amicus’ famed horror productions,  The Beast Must Die  combines the country-house whodunnit with the werewolf shocker and adds a dash of blaxploitation for good measure.

Picture 7/10

Indicator brings Paul Annett’s The Beast Must Die to Blu-ray, presenting the film on a single-layer disc in the aspect ratio of 1.66:1. It comes with a 1080p/24hz high-definition encode.

Apparently this presentation is from a new 4K restoration, or at least from a 4K scan, performed by StudioCanal, suggesting it’s newer. If that is the case, though, I'm really struggling with that. While the image does offer some decent detail and it does stay sharp most of the time, there is still a noisy, video-like look to it. I kept coming back to it again and again and if I hadn't been told otherwise I would have sworn this was just an old master, albeit an above average one. It has some of the telltale signs of a newer restoration, the biggest one being the green tint that has been applied to it, which differs a great deal from the screen grabs I've seen of an older Blu-ray release (though every other aspect of that presentation looks terrible). But then how the grain is rendered here suggests an older master: there are so many shots, particularly brighter exterior ones, where grain looks blocky and "clumpy," giving the picture a compressed look. The image can also have a rather murky look because of the black levels, which can come off severely crushed in a number of shots.

It's possible all of this could come down to the source used. The notes don't make mention of what was scanned, and if it wasn't the negative that could be part of the problem. There are also some shots that go a little dupier in comparison to a majority of the film, so it's also possible multiple elements were used. But even then I feel the image would come off more photographic than it actually is.

At the very least the restoration work is impeccable. Damage is in no way a concern, and nothing sticks out in that regard, other than some title cards that look a bit rough. Colours, again, can have that green-ish tint to them, but it does seem to suit the film at the very least and doesn't impact the image drastically (unless its the reason for the weaker blacks). Reds and greens look good, and there are some decent blues as well.

Altogether I confess I don't really know what to make of this image. I don't feel it's Indicator as their encoding is usually impeccable, so that would me to believe the issues come down to the original master. If it's an older master then I would say it's a very good looking one, but if it's actually from a newer 4K restoration then it's a disappointment.

The film comes with a lossless PCM monaural soundtrack. The film is an odd mix of horror, murder-mystery, action, and blaxploitation and the soundtrack works to capture all of that, so it has plenty of low key and intense attributes. The music has its moments and the track doesn’t have any cracks, pops, drops, or anything else of the sort. But fidelity is weak, and the quality comes off a little hollow.

Extras 7/10

Indicator does put together a rather interesting set of supplements, most of it alternate audio that plays over the main feature. There is an audio commentary featuring director Paul Annett discussing the film with author Jonathan Sothcott, which appears to have been recorded for an earlier Blu-ray edition. It’s a general chat about the film’s production, from how Annett came to be involved and shooting. He talks a lot about the actors, particularly Cushing and Charles Gray (neither of whom knew how to play chess, the two having a few chess-playing scenes together) and recounts how he was forced to add or change scenes (that chase scene that feels it came out of nowhere? That was forced in). Annett regrets a few things, though admits he was limited as to what he could do: he knows the wolf is lame and there were things in the source novel that he wishes he added to the film, but time and money limited things. I wasn’t counting on much from the track, but the film had an interesting production and Annett has quite a lot to share.

The remaining audio features (which also play over the film through an alternate audio track) are all archival. First is a fairly rough recording of an interview between Sothcott and Amicus Productions co-founder Max J. Rosenberg , which runs only 47-minutes (and it sounds like the tape ran out at one point). There’s a lot of background noise and it can be hard to make out a lot of the time (the recording was only made for research purposes) but Rosenberg discusses Amicus, some of the films, and Amicus co-founder Milton Subotsky. He talks about a number of films, and even some he was involved with, like Tales from the Crypt in 1972.

Following that are then two BEHP interviews: one with cinematographer Jack Hildyard (recorded in 1988) and another with editor Peter Tanner . Tanner’s is supposed to be the second part of the interview and covers 80-minutes of the film. In this portion he talks a lot about his time at Ealing Studio and some of his later work, like Hamburger Hill , which he is particularly proud of. Hildyard’s is more of an overview as discusses how he become involved in the film business and talks about working with directors Alfred Hitchcock and Joseph Losey, to name a few. He also talks about the experience of working with five directors on the James Bond spoof, Casino Royale . Both interviews cover a lot and it’s always fascinating hearing all of these details about various filmmakers and films but presented in their raw form they can run on at times.

Author Stephen Laws then provides a 3-minute appreciation for the film and its impressive cast, followed by a 13-minute interview with director Annett , though it more or less summarizes comments her made in the commentary (he talks about the cast, why the werewolf is the way it is, offers a general overview of the production).

There is also the film’s 58-second trailer (with an optional commentary by Kim Newman and David Flint, going over the uniqueness of the movie at the time) and a small image gallery , which includes a poster for a double-bill of this film and Brian De Palma’s Sisters . Most fascinating, though (and a fairly common addition on Indicator releases) is the Super 8 version of the film. These were single film reels that worked like a home video version, but since Super 8 reels were so short the film would usually have to be truncated to a ridiculous degree. Running 18-minutes it basically cuts out the first half of the film (while also altering the timeline a bit) and then rushes to the conclusion. It also offers a bit of a snapshot of the time since the opening title card felt the need to point out that the main character was a “wealthy coloured big-game hunter.”

As usual with Indicator releases the booklet ends up being one of the best aspects. It opens with a great little essay on the film’s unique qualities by film critic Neil Young, followed by a reprint of a 1974 article about Amicus productions and the then-upcoming film The Beast Must Die . Also here are excerpts from the short story on which the film is based, “There Shall Be No Darkness,” written by James Blish, accompanied by notes on the story and author, and then a short profile on actor Calvin Lockhart. And as usual, Indicator includes a sampling of film reviews of the time, including a surprisingly positive one by Verina Glaessner for Monthly Film Bulletin and then a negative one from Gene Siskel for the Chicago Tribune (saying the wolf looks like a “spray-painted collie”). I always love going through their booklets.

Though not everything is specific to the film itself (the audio interviews don’t have much of anything about the film) Indicator has gathered a solid set of material around the film, members of its crew, and Amicus Productions.

I have no idea what’s going on with the actual presentation: it’s supposed to be a new restoration but I don’t get a sense of that. At the very least this edition does pack on some good supplements covering the production, and, as usual, the Super 8 version is a fascinating artifact.

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‘The Beast Must Die’ Review: Cush Jumbo and Jared Harris Create Perfect Dueling Partners

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With the pandemic causing a slowdown in production, there’s an opportunity for already-shot shows from across the pond to fill the gap. Adapted from the novel by Cecil Day-Lewis, “ The Beast Must Die ” is an intense and reflective tale of grief, vengeance, and privilege that’s as impossible to stop watching as I’m sure the book itself is to read. Anchored by Cush Jumbo and Jared Harris ‘ indomitable performances, the addictive import could even fill the void left by other crime dramas like “Mare of Easttown.”

Frances Cairns (Jumbo) details her intentions in the opening minutes of the series: “I’m going to kill a man.” She doesn’t know who the man is or where he lives, but his days are numbered. Said man ran over her six-year-old son, Marty, in a hit-and-run, leaving Frances to pick up the pieces of a life left utterly broken. Having received a letter that the case has grown cold, Frances confronts the new chief of police for the Isle of Wight, Nigel Strangeways (Billy Howle).

Like Frances, Strangeways is also dealing with grief. His predecessor has killed himself and Strangeways suffers from PTSD due to an yet-untold traumatic event. When he meets Frances, he’s struck by how cold and callous he can be. He literally feels nothing and is shocked that a woman who has lost her child is able to feel at all. This crossroads puts the pair on separate paths to achieve the same aims: close a case and, hopefully, gain some resolution to their own damaged spirits.

Series creator and screenwriter Gabby Chiappe and director Dome Karukoski form a series that’s contemplative when necessary while never devolving into being cold or overly artistic. Frances gets fleeting glimpses of little Marty, but never so much that the audience assumes she’s mentally deteriorating.

Too often in shows about women losing children, they’re four-hanky melodramas. Here, with Jumbo in the lead, the character skirts the line between justice and revenge, never entering “Killing Eve” territory, but staying away from telling another tragic tale of what women do when their children pass.

It cannot be overstated how amazing Jumbo is in the role. So much of her plan requires a sense of manipulation, starting with her ingratiating herself into the life of young model, Lena (Mia Tomlinson), who might yield a lead toward Marty’s killer. Jumbo always maintains Frances’ sense of humanity — this woman wasn’t a killer before, after all — so while she’s trying to get Lena to give insight into her life (and the people in it), Frances also hopes to help this girl who’s obviously holding some dark secret of her own.

The core of the series’ intrigue comes when Frances finds herself staying with Lena’s sister, Vi (Maeve Dermody) and brother-in-law, George Rattrey (Jared Harris). Frances has been given every indication that George is her son’s killer, and it’s easy to see why — at least for the audience, who are most likely familiar with Harris’ past stints as a villain. This could be the moment the series jumps the shark as it’s all but stamped on the character that he is who Frances thinks he is, but instead it’s where “The Beast Must Die” becomes addictive.

The Rattrey’s are members of that grand tradition of television families: incredibly wealthy but suffering internally, each and every one. Violet is sickly, quiet, and meek; George is entitled, rude, and lecherous; their young son, Phil (Barney Sayburn), is fat-shamed by his dad on a constant basis, and George’s sister, Joy (Geraldine James), rules over everything with an iron fist. The series revels in showing this den of snakes constantly snipe at each other, with Frances on her own mission to find out what makes the family, especially George, tick.

Honestly, watching Jumbo and Harris verbally dance around each other is half the fun. Both characters are playing roles that constantly shift based on what we, the audience, believe each knows about the other. Jumbo keeps Frances on tenterhooks, holding in a shudder or gasp whenever George is nearby. Harris, to his credit, makes George just as charming as he can be. The character is a horrible person, all that we’ve come to expect from a privileged white guy, and yet it’s easy to see how he’s kept people wrapped around his finger.

With all the power being driven to this plotline, it leaves poor Billy Howle’s journey as Strangeways feeling like an afterthought. Because the character is on the fringes of the main narrative, it’s hard to truly connect with him, which means much of his plotline has to compete to have merit. The emphasis on his PTSD, his inability to connect with people, and the tragedy he witnessed are all there, but they don’t seem to pack the same punch as Frances’ narrative, maybe because everything just seems to bounce off him. Howle’s solid as the straight man trying to keep up with what’s happening, but he’s completely overshadowed.

“The Beast Must Die” is a must-watch for the amazing performances from Cush Jumbo and Jared Harris. The finale wraps things up a bit too quickly to keep in line with British shows penchant for short seasons, and Howle feels like a third wheel, but if you’re hoping to indulge your crime urge, this will more than satisfy the craving.

“The Beast Must Die” premieres Monday, July 12 at 10 p.m. ET on AMC . Episodes are already streaming via AMC+.

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Beast Must Die’ On AMC, Where A Woman Infiltrates The Life Of The Driver That Killed Her Son

Where to stream:.

• The Beast Must Die (2021)

• Stream It Or Skip It

Stream It Or Skip It: 'Rachel Feinstein: Big Guy' On Netflix, Joking About The Pleasures And Plight Of Being A Firefighter's Wife

Stream it or skip it: ‘gaga chromatica ball’ on max, a concert film packed with lady gaga bangers (and a tree piano), stream it or skip it: ‘the beach boys’ on disney+, a reverent look back at a band whose “good vibrations” just couldn’t last, stream it or skip it: ‘civil war’ on vod, a thorny, provocative and action-packed slice of speculative fiction that offers no easy answers.

The Beast Must Die sets up the ultimate revenge ploy: A mother, with nowhere else to turn three months after her son died due to a hit and run, decides to find the a-hole who killed her kid, gain his trust, and eventually kill the guy herself. How she does it, and if she pulls it off, is at the crux of this series, as is the life of the new DI who is looking into why the case got dropped by his predecessor.

THE BEAST MUST DIE : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A little boy running through the woods. Then we flash to a woman with an angry look and water splashed on her face. “I’m going to kill a man. I don’t know his name. I don’t know what he looks like. I don’t know where he is. But I’m going to find him,” she says in voice over. Then she says out loud, “and kill him.”

The Gist: Nigel Strangeways (Billy Howle) is in his therapist’s office talking about a catastrophic event that has sent him there. But he’s decided to work on it himself and take a job someplace with less pressure. We see what that job is when he arrives on the Isle of Wight is as the small police department’s Detective Inspector, replacing the beloved DI Bill Geraghty, who died of a heart attack on the golf course. Nigel arrives on the day of Geraghty’s funeral.

As he cleans Geraghty’s desk he sees the picture of a boy taped to his monitor, a Mason’s tie pin and a rock that looks like it was painted by someone around that child’s age. He’s nearly alone in the office during the funeral, save for community support officer Asha James (Aasiya Shah) when Frances Cairnes (Cush Jumbo) came in; she had gotten a “no further action” letter from Geraghty about her son’s hit and run death on the island on Easter Sunday and is demanding answers.

Nigel looks over the file and sees the same picture that was taped to the monitor. Frances wants to know why the case is being shelved. Nigel tries to explain, but that only gets Frances distraught and angry that the cops on the Isle of Wight aren’t looking hard enough. She storms out, splashes water on her face in the bathroom and vows to get the driver that killed her son herself.

She goes back to London and goes on leave from her teaching job, gets herself a short blond hairdo, rents a flat on the Isle of Wight and sets about trying to find out, asking people who lived around the area of the accident. She pretends she’s with Traffic Safety to gain their trust. She’s eventually led to a model named Lena (Mia Tomlinson), who worked a car show that day. Pretending she’s a journalist on a story, she hangs out with Lena for a couple of days, then, after a drinking session, Frances gets her phone and finds out the call Lena keeps ignoring: A man named George.

Meanwhile, Nigel attends a memorial service for his partner on the force in London; he was with her when she got killed in the incident that has sent Nigel to the Isle of Wight.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Beast Must Die  has the feel of a prestige drama with complex characters, but sometimes its vibe comes off more like a CBS procedural or  Law & Order episode where the cop/detective gets too many answers too quickly from people who seem to open up to them immediately.

Our Take: Maybe we were expecting too much from  The Beast Must Die , given that Jumbo, Howle and Jared Harris (who plays George Rattery, whose life Frances will infiltrate in order to execute her revenge plan) are the series’ stars. And there is a lot to like about the show, especially the rage we see Jumbo display as Frances, along with Howle’s ability to make Nigel in control but not quite completely together. How he puts the pieces of the puzzle together about why the death of Frances’ son got swept under the rug while he deals with his partner’s death, will be where the series shines.

But the first episode left us flat, especially with how Frances managed to get the information she needed in the span of a few days, just by telling a bunch of plausible lies to seemingly gullible people. She puts on her ID badge from her old teaching job to make herself look “official” as a Traffic Safety investigator, and no one seems to check what it says or wonder why she always has it turned over. When she tells Lena she’s a journalist, Lena neither Googles her nor stops to wonder for long why this strange woman wants to hang with her for a few days.

It’s all a bit implausible, which is why we made the comparison to the mysteries found on American network procedurals; complex cases get unlocked quickly by the right person saying the right thing at the right time. More often than not, that structure comes off stiff and clunky rather than genuine and flowing. And that’s how it comes off here.

Sure, once Frances finds George and starts to get involved with his life and gain his trust, that clunkiness may get smoothed out. But we’re wondering if Harris’ character is going to find himself trusting Frances much faster than any normal human would, if only because the season is only 5 episodes and the narrative needs to be moved along.

That’s not to say that the dialogue from Gaby Chiappe, who adapted Cecil Day-Lewis’ novel (though seems to change quite a bit, including Frances’ gender) isn’t sharp. It’s what we enjoyed about the first episode the most, including Jumbo’s and Howle’s performances (Harris doesn’t appear until Episode 2). But we just wish Frances’ way to George didn’t look so damned easy.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: When Frances sees the name “George” in Lena’s phone, she remembers that the sports car that killed her son had a license plate that spells “G3ORG3.”

Sleeper Star: Douggie McMeekin plays young detective Vincent O’Brien, whom it seems like Nigel will lean on to get the pulse of the different “community groups” that vie for the attention of the cops and local government.

Most Pilot-y Line: Nigel calls his therapist Blount (Nathaniel Parker) a “fairy” and “expensive,” and it seems the therapist is offended at neither insult.

Our Call: STREAM IT. We’re recommending  The Beast Must Die mainly because of the performances of Jumbo and Howle, and the delicious potential of Jumbo and Harris’ scenes together.

Will you stream or skip the well-acted drama series #TheBeastMustDie on @AMC ? #SIOSI — Decider (@decider) July 14, 2021

Joel Keller ( @joelkeller ) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com , VanityFair.com , Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream  The Beast Must Die  On AMCTV.com

Stream  The Beast Must Die  On AMC+

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The Beast Must Die

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Rent The Beast Must Die on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video.

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The Beast Must Die finale review: Emotional thriller gives heart-wrenching lesson in grief

• Published : 11:04, 18 Jun 2021
• Updated : 14:35, 3 Aug 2021

THE Beast Must Die came to a dramatic conclusion on BritBox yesterday (Thursday, June 17). 

After many twists and turns, we finally found out who was responsible for the hit-and-run that killed six-year-old Marty Cairns on the Isle of Wight .

WARNING: Contains major spoilers from the final episode of The Beast Must Die.

The five-part series had all the elements of a nail-biting thriller right from the word go , with a hit-and-run, a detective called to investigate, and a stormy island.

But it quickly became clear that the drama was evolving into much more when Marty’s mother Frances Cairns (Cush Jumbo) tracked down the main suspect in the crime, wealthy patriarch George Rattery (Jared Harris), and began to plot his demise. 

The series proved to be a compelling exploration of grief, through Frances, of course, as she set out to avenge the death of her son, but also through detective Nigel Strangeways (Billy Howle), who was revealed to be suffering from PTSD after witnessing the violent death of a colleague.

The finale saw Frances fulfill her murder mission, poisoning George with tramadol in her hip flask. 

But her answer to grief, she admitted, was wrong. “I thought things would be different. I thought I’d feel different,” she told Strangeways, before drowning herself. 

In the show’s closing scenes, the detective, who had previously tried to shrug off his grief, reflected on Frances’s words and burst into tears, finally vowing to deal with his trauma.

It was a moving conclusion, and one that compensated for the slightly anticlimactic plot, in which George, and not the other passenger in the vehicle Lena, turned out to be the driver after all.

Was it the answer we wanted? It might not have delivered in terms of twists, but it certainly offered a lesson on white male privilege as George grew increasingly bitter that he was losing some of the power that saw him get away with the hit-and-run in the first place when the former detective - his pal - covered up his involvement.

“If the shoe was on the other foot, you’d be accusing me of profiling you,” he told Frances when he realised she thought he was guilty.

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Cush Jumbo’s performance as the lead role has been rightly lauded, and was so multilayered as she switched between grief-stricken and unflinching in the pursuit of her son’s killer. 

Billy Howle also offered a nuanced portrayal of the suffering detective and the superb acting throughout the entire series, together with the music and filming, came together to create many compelling moments.

The Beat Must Die is available to stream in full on Britbox now.

• Cast & crew
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The Beast Must Die

Eight people are invited to an island estate for the weekend. One of them is a werewolf. Can you guess which one? Eight people are invited to an island estate for the weekend. One of them is a werewolf. Can you guess which one? Eight people are invited to an island estate for the weekend. One of them is a werewolf. Can you guess which one?

• Paul Annett
• Michael Winder
• James Blish
• Calvin Lockhart
• Peter Cushing
• Marlene Clark
• 101 User reviews
• 64 Critic reviews
• 60 Metascore

• Tom Newcliffe

• Dr. Christopher Lundgren

• Caroline Newcliffe

• (as Sam Mansaray)
• (as Carl Bohun)

• Narrator of the Werewolf Break
• (uncredited)

• Paul Annett (uncredited)
• James Blish (uncredited)
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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• Trivia Despite writer / director Paul Annett 's objections, producer Milton Subotsky (who hated this movie) insisted on the werewolf break gimmick where the viewer was invited to guess who the werewolf is.
• Goofs When the alarm shows that the werewolf has left the estate and is prowling in the woods, Tom has his surveillance expert help him track the beast. He could have taken a few seconds to look in on all the guests via the spy cameras to see which one was missing from their room and so discover the werewolf's identity, but it doesn't seem to occur to him.

Narrator of the Werewolf Break : This film is a detective story - in which you are the detective. The question is not "Who is the murderer?", but "Who is the werewolf?" After all the clues have been shown, you will get a chance to give your answer. Watch for The Werewolf Break.

• Crazy credits [At the beginning of the film, with narration] This film is a detective story--in which you are the detective The question is not "Who is the murderer?"--But "Who is the werewolf?" After all the clues have been shown--You will get a chance to give your answer. (Said but not written on screen, directly after above quote: Watch for the werewolf break).
• Alternate versions Also released as "Black Werewolf" without the werewolf break.
• Connections Edited into The Gentle Touch: Melody (1980)
• Soundtracks Moonlight Sonata (uncredited) Music by Ludwig van Beethoven Arranged by Douglas Gamley

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• Jul 29, 2006
• How long is The Beast Must Die? Powered by Alexa
• April 1974 (United States)
• United Kingdom
• Black Werewolf
• Shepperton Studios, Studios Road, Shepperton, Surrey, England, UK (studio: made at Shepperton Studios, Middx. England.)
• Amicus Productions
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 33 minutes

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Produced by, the beast must die (1974), directed by paul annett.

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Synopsis by Rovi

Characteristics, related movies.

The Beast review: "An elegant but ultimately unwieldy sci-fi drama”

GamesRadar+ Verdict

An elegant, elliptical film that’s equal parts impressive and infuriating.

Why you can trust GamesRadar+ Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about our reviews policy.

Spanning two continents, three eras and who knows how many genres, this unwieldy sci-fi drama from French auteur Bertrand Bonello (2016’s Nocturama) fully commits to its title. Loosely inspired by a 1903 Henry James novella, it stars Lea Seydoux and George MacKay (replacing Bonello regular Gaspard Ulliel, who died before filming) as two people whose paths keep crossing through the ages. 

In Paris, 1910, she’s a pianist, he’s her suitor; in LA, 2014, she’s an actor/model, he’s her stalker; and in an unspecified location in 2044, she undergoes a mysterious procedure to purify her DNA – the reason, perhaps, for all the time-shifting that we’ve seen. 

In each period there are common elements. Pigeons recur, as do clairvoyants, nightclubs, dolls and works of art such as Madame Butterfly. And throughout, Seydoux’s character is terrified of an unspecified disaster: the eponymous beast. So we experience a flooded Paris and an LA earthquake and hear of an off-screen Armageddon averted by AI. It is, to use 2024 parlance, a lot.

Seydoux is reliably luminous in a demanding role, but MacKay seems a little rudderless. There are some stunning moments, such as the eerily green-screened opener, and an unsettling underwater sequence up there with Dario Argento’s Inferno. 

But the 145-minute runtime feels increasingly indulgent, and Bonello borrows heavily from Kubrick, Lynch and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind . Ultimately, it’s hard not to agree with one character’s assessment of a piece of classical music: "It’s very inventive, but it’s hard to find emotion in it."

The Beast is in UK cinemas on May 31 and is in US theaters now. 

For more upcoming movies , here's our guide to 2024 movie release dates .

Matt Glasby is a freelance film and TV journalist. You can find his work on Total Film - in print and online - as well as at publications like the Radio Times, Channel 4, DVD REview, Flicks, GQ, Hotdog, Little White Lies, and SFX, among others. He is also the author of several novels, including The Book of Horror: The Anatomy of Fear in Film and Britpop Cinema: From Trainspotting To This Is England.

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How Lollapalooza Became the One Thing Its Founders Hated

A new Paramount+ docuseries tracks how the festival went from an alternative underground tour to a mainstream global phenomenon.

Nick Schager

Entertainment Critic

During its trailblazing heyday, Lollapalooza provided an unparalleled platform for the alternative. The problem was that by doing so it made the alternative mainstream, which ultimately caused the summer music festival to betray its roots—an inevitable evolution that stands as the most fascinating aspect of Lolla: The Story of Lollapalooza , a nostalgia-fest which understands that all good underground things must either die or become the very thing against which they rebel.

Ironically, Michael John Warren’s three-part Paramount+ docuseries (May 21) is somewhat undercut by a similar dynamic, given that its own desire to end on a happy note means that it must ignore the fact that there’s no going home again to recapture the magic that made a sensation truly sensational in the first place. As a result, it’s ultimately more promotion than critique.

Lollapalooza launched in 1991 as the brainchild of Perry Farrell, frontman for the paradigm-shifting band Jane’s Addiction, who—along with cofounders Ted Gardner, Don Muller, and Marc Geiger—viewed it a way to channel the spirit of England’s Reading Festival (and its ilk) by bringing together an assorted line-up of artists on a single stage. Designed as a farewell for Jane’s Addiction, which planned to disband once this run of shows was completed, it quickly blossomed into an invigorating new take on an old format. Attendees were offered not just one great performance after another, but a common area filled with local avant-garde artists, social activist booths that sought to raise awareness about guns, the environment, and voting, and additional attractions that made it an immersive day-long experience directly attuned to the era’s youth culture.

Just as Jane’s Addiction was at the vanguard of the burgeoning alternative rock movement, Lollapalooza arrived at an auspicious moment, with a variety of bands in different genres offering an antidote to 1980s corporate rock. On its maiden outing, Lollapalooza featured Jane’s Addiction and a collection of acts that suggested a new way forward for rock, from the industrial aggression of Nine Inch Nails and the politicized metal of Ice-T & Body Count to the post-punk experimentation of Siouxsie and the Banshees. To a greater degree than anyone expected, it was a massive hit, thereby spawning subsequent summer iterations that made Lollapalooza a household name and its template the one to emulate. More importantly, it helped launch the careers of many of the decade’s biggest bands, be it Pearl Jam (1992), Soundgarden (1992), Tool (1992/1993), Alice in Chains (1993), Rage Against the Machine (1993), or Green Day (1994), all of whom got big breaks on the Lolla stage.

In the early ’90s, Lollapalooza so perfectly predicted, embraced, and exploited a burgeoning shift that it became an essential part of the teen zeitgeist, and its expansion—including a third stage and myriad ancillary entertainments like the stomach-churning Jim Rose Circus—made it the must-see event of each summer. As Lolla: The Story of Lollapalooza shrewdly points out, a considerable component of that appeal was its diversity. While most attendees may have been white men, the tour’s inclusion of Black and female artists turned it into a melting pot of genres, traditions, and viewpoints. Commentary here from Ice-T, Tom Morello, and Living Colour’s Vernon Reid (among others) helps underscore how thrilling it was to be in an open-minded environment where disparate people and styles found easygoing common ground.

Lolla: The Story of Lollapalooza is led by interviews with Farrell, Muller, Geiger, and their dedicated colleagues, along with musicians who participated in one of Lollapalooza’s multiple go-rounds. Moreover, it boasts considerable archival footage of performances and backstage shenanigans, some of it courtesy of MTV News, which routinely covered the event. In terms of capturing the feel of the era, Warren’s docuseries is spot-on, and that also goes for its examination of the growing pains that accompanied the tour beginning in 1994, when sales were so robust that many began questioning whether the festival had become a showcase for the status quo it originally opposed. Of course, that’s precisely what had happened, although through no fault of its own; like the artists it spotlighted, Lollapalooza was simply a victim of an industry in which alternative bands had unwittingly become the new arena rock gods.

Fans crowd surfing at the Lollapalooza concert in Waterloo Village, New Jersey Aug. 14, 1991.

Ebet Roberts/Redferns

Lollapalooza’s subsequent attempts to pivot—first back to its indie origins in 1995, and then to aggro stadium metal in 1996—proved equally clumsy. As with 1996’s headliners Metallica, the definition of a modern anti-mainstream band that had transformed into an unstoppable rock goliath, Lollapalooza grew so large that it wound up getting caught in a no-win situation, and following its 1997 iteration, it opted to shut down. Except, as Lolla: The Story of Lollapalooza details in its final installment, it was eventually revived in 2005 as a one-day event in Chicago’s Grant Park. That reinvention was a success, and the docuseries (and Farrell) do their best to paint this as the third act of a heartening story about the beauty of bringing people together to dance, sing, and listen to the music that they love.

Yet while accurate, the redemption-story platitudes forwarded by Lolla: The Story of Lollapalooza about the festival’s Chicago phase—which was marked by memorable performances by Metallica, Rage Against the Machine, Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, and various pop stars—can’t overshadow the impression that the original vibe and vitality of Lollapalooza is now a distant memory. Lollapalooza rose from the dead as something mainstream, corporate, and indistinct from the myriad other music events that dot the summer calendar. If Farrell and company are happy with it being a popular regional event for fans of Dua Lipa, Chance the Rapper, and their top-40 compatriots—not to mention an extravaganza that can be duplicated in foreign territories—that’s all well and good. Yet in light of this series’ early celebration of the festival as a crucial landmark in alternative culture, the concluding praise for Lollapalooza’s later incarnations comes across as less a recognition that things change than the type of sell-out that Farrell claims is what he’s struggled against for his entire career.

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The Beast Review

Opening with an actress screaming at an invisible attacker while filming a green-screen scene, The Beast immediately reveals its primary ideas: the eeriness of technological advancement, a feeling of deep anguish at a terror that isn’t really there, and the interaction between the two. Bertrand Bonello’s sci-fi — in which two people, Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux) and Louis (George MacKay), meet in different eras — is an extraordinary excavation of the role technology plays in causing emotional mayhem, and a clarion call to those who would use it as a stand-in during daily human life.

If that sounds complicated, then buckle up: with three timelines and endless recurring symbolism, The Beast is, well, a bit of a beast. We begin in 1910, where Gabrielle is a musician; in 2014, she’s a model and actor house-sitting in Los Angeles; in 2044, she is considering “purifying” her DNA in an attempt to get a job in an AI-riddled society. In all three eras, she’s haunted by an intense feeling that something, one day, will annihilate her. Is it all in her head?

Though the story feels so attuned to current-day neuroses, its themes are timeless.

To the film’s benefit, Bonello doesn’t over-explain the backstory for this cold vision of the future, which is what sometimes dates less successful sci-fi movies — here, 2044 is a believable state of affairs, with experts already warning of the quasi-dystopia we could be facing with AI in an even closer timeframe. All we know is that after a ‘tragedy’ in 2025, AI has been increasingly relied upon in place of human-led employment, and that the government wants to ‘cleanse’ the workforce by purging them of upsetting memories from their past lives, thus reducing emotional suffering and removing biased decision-making — essentially, banishing ‘human affect’. A suffocating 4:3 aspect ratio locks us into this cold world where the streets are deserted, and the passivity of the populace — evidenced in a small but crucial role by Saint Omer ’s Guslagie Malanda as ‘doll’ Kelly — is pretty alarming.

Thanks to what is arguably Léa Seydoux’s best performance, we never feel lost among all the complex imagery across the timelines, from clairvoyants to pigeons, knives and dolls. With just a mere flicker in her expression, it’s so easy to identify with her passion and pain, even if the uncanny atmosphere leaves a deep feeling of ‘wrongness’ seeping into your pores like poison. There’s something in the 2044 scenes that feels strongly reminiscent of David Lynch, especially the way he makes you empathise with the anguish of Laura Palmer in Twin Peaks , despite all the strangeness in tone and mood.

Throughout, the director makes us just as afraid as Seydoux’s Gabrielle — afraid of what is the question that remains so riveting. Bonello mixes his high-concept sci-fi with real events — nodding to the 1910 Great Flood of Paris, as well as the 2014 Isla Vista killings by a misogynistic incel — to disorientate us as viewers, forcing us to sort through what is real and what isn’t, just like Gabrielle.

It’s in the 2014 timeline where there is the thickest atmosphere of inching dread and imminent catastrophe. Painted as a time of narcissism where nobody is really seeing, the world is filtered through sunglasses, videophones, surveillance cameras, YouTube and broadcast news; Dasha Nekrasova’s appearance as a model who speaks in an insincere Millennial drawl epitomises the empty posturing of the era. Bonello seems to be begging: wake up.

And in its purest essence, The Beast asks us to entertain a scary thought: if you could, would you go through a medical procedure that would remove all the parts of your brain that make you upset and frightened? Despite its esoteric imagery, the film is incredibly accurate in its exploration of anxiety, from the cruel nature of foreboding, to the ways we take refuge in the past, and how we often put ourselves in danger in our desperate pursuit for inner peace.

Though the story feels so attuned to current-day neuroses, its themes are timeless; it is, after all, loosely adapted from the Henry James novella The Beast In The Jungle , which notes: “It wouldn’t have been failure to be bankrupt, dishonoured, pilloried, hanged; it was failure not to be anything.” Bonello seems to echo in agreement: embrace the possibility of catastrophe, because a future without it is a whole different beast.