The Beast Must Die
Millionaire Tom Newcliffe (Calvin Lockhart) invites a group of people to spend some time in his rural English mansion, along with his wife Caroline (Marlene Clark) where he reveals that one of them is a werewolf, and therefore must be killed. The group is composed of:Arthur Bennington (Charles Gray); a diplomat.Jan and Davina Gilmore (Michael Gambon and Ciaran Madden); a pianist and his ex-student, now wife.Paul Foote (Tom Chadbon); an artist recently released from prison.Prof. Lundgren (Peter Cushing); an archaeologist and a lycanthropy enthusiast.They all stay in the mansion where they are submitted to various tests to force them to transform into a werewolf. The entire house is under surveillance by CCTV cameras as well as motion sensors in the grounds around the mansion set up and overseen by Tom's associate Pavel (Anton Diffring), who doesn't believe in werewolves.The only way to determine the identity of the werewolf is submitting the one to the three nights of the full moon while the wolfsbane is mixed in the air. Tom makes them grab silver objects to provoke allergic reactions, but this proves unsuccessful.One night, while Tom makes a patrol around the mansion that picks up something moving, Pavel is killed by the werewolf, which makes Tom more and more obsessive in finding the werewolf, driving his wife crazy. Tom focuses his suspicions under Paul Foote, who reportedly was arrested because he has eaten human flesh. Foote denies he is the werewolf.The following night, Tom rents a helicopter and does an aerial patrol where he finds the four-legged werewolf running through the woods and he opens fire on it, but misses. Forcing the helicopter to land, the werewolf then attacks kills the helicopter's pilot. It then attacks and kills Caroline's dog, before making its way back to the mansion where it kills Arthur Bennington in his bed.(Note: The viewer is invited to unfold the mystery along with the characters. Near the ending, just before the final scenes, there's a 30 second break called "The Werewolf Break", where the audience is asked to guess who's the werewolf, based around the events of the movie.)Tom submits the remaining group to one final test: put a silver bullet in the mouth. He, however, is forced to take the test first to prove to to the rest of the group that he is not the werewolf. As Caroline puts the silver in her mouth, her hairy, clawed hand is shown and she immediately transforms into the werewolf. She (fully transformed) attacks Tom and he kills her by shooting her with a silver bullet, making him very distraught because Caroline was alongside him when the werewolf killed her dog. Prof. Lundgren deduces that she contracted the werewolf disease while taking care of her dog's wounds. Tom gets angry and promptly thinks Foote is the werewolf, but Foote is also found dead minutes later by the werewolf. To avenge his wife, he enters the woods surrounding the mansion to hunt the werewolf. He finds the beast and finally shoots and kills it. Once dead, the werewolf returns to it's human form and it is revealed to be Jan, the pianist.Tom returns to Prof. Lundgren and Davina, and he soon realizes he was bitten by the werewolf during the scuffle, thus making him the next victim. Not wanting to be another creature, Tom locks himself in the mansion where he goes to his study and shoots himself in the head with a silver bullet.
mystery