Le mystère de la bête humaine

A millionaire brings an assortment of characters to his heavily secured home and plenty of acreage around it. He then tells each that they were brought for a reason...that one of them is a werewolf. The rest of the story goes through the paces of finding out who the beast is and what must be done with it. I did not have the version with the game on it...my copy was called Black Werewolf(a poor job in renaming the film and it added awful title cards as well). This is the 70s film all around. The outfits, the hairstyles, and that awful-yet-appropriate soundtrack are all signs of the times. The movie is cheesy and yet fun to watch. Calvin Lockhart, as the lead, is like George Jefferson on steroids. The supporting cast is filled with stalwarts from the British stage and screen, amongst them Charles Gray, Anton Diffring, and the ever-affable Peter Cushing as the dispenser of knowledge dealing with lycanthropy. A pleasant diversion to watch!

An odd little horror flick-slash-whodunit that is part "Ten Little Indians," part "The Most Dangerous Game," part haunted house thriller, and all low-budget (but supremely entertaining) fun. An eccentric millionaire harboring a fascination for werewolves invites guests to his countryside mansion, where he intends to prove that one of them is, indeed, a werewolf. There are plot holes galore, but the excellent British cast, the William Castle-esque "werewolf break" (during which the audience is asked to guess wolfie's identity), the unexpected triple-whammy (and deeply ironic) ending, and the use of the "Jeopardy" theme (!) make up for it. The "clues" aren't nearly as plentiful or as clear as advertised, and the soundtrack is straight out of a 70s-era action flick, but no matter. A little-known gem that is most definitely worth seeing.

what a great idea. badly executed. the best big game hunter in the world tries to kill a werewolf. seems to me like he was one of the worst shots, let alone one of the worst hunters in the world. not once did he use his skills, relying on everyone else around him to do the work for him, and he could just walk in for the kill. wheres the honour in killing your foe with a machine gun? i sat and watched as a film i'd wanted to see went plodding along until the end(though the ending was quite good). a weak film with some 'jazzy' music. what would terence fisher have done with it? made it fun at least. for once, a remake might do this idea justice. and make it scary this time, darnit!

One of the good things about the AMC channel is the later you watch it, the weirder the movies get. This one came on at about 1:30 in the morning, and as soon as the creepy narration announced "This is a detective story... where YOU are the detective," I knew I was in for something cool. The narration is followed by an offbeat opening where a black guy (dressed in all black) is running through the woods being chased by a bunch of military types, against a jazz soundtrack. Turns out he's testing out his new security system, and sure enough, there's no way to avoid getting caught on these premises.

After the weird opening, the movie settles down into a pretty straightforward plot. It's really a combination of 'The Most Dangerous Game' and 'Ten Little Indians' (the "guess the culprit" gimmick is practically stolen from the latter movie). A wealthy hunter has gathered a group of guests, one of whom is a werewolf, in order to hunt the ultimate game. But finding out who the werewolf is turns out to be trickier than expected...

The cast is actually quite impressive, and odds are you'll be less interested in figuring out who the werewolf is than figuring out where you've seen all these people before (I'm still racking my brain on Anton Diffring). Of course, every movie like this has at least one unintentionally funny part, and in this one it's Peter Cushing's Dr. Lundgren, the Werewolf Expert. Cushing is a fine actor, but he almost becomes a running joke here, because every time someone asks him about werewolves he goes off on this long spiel describing werewolves in scientific detail that must be heard to be believed. Thanks to this movie, I now know that lycanthropy is caused by a defect in the lymphatic system, and that silver can't harm a werewolf unless there's pollen in the air (?), etc.

This a B-movie, for sure, but a pretty good one. It's well done and suspenseful, and it will keep you interested until the very end. Very much worth watching. 8/10 stars.

This low-budget horror film had an innovative concept, mixing rather successfully a traditional Agatha Christie-type murder mystery with a "gory" werewolf flick; the result does hold your attention but is marred by wooden acting (except for the excellent Peter Cushing) and a few overextended chase scenes. As another reviewer noted, no real clues are given to us to help us figure out the identity of the werewolf, so it's strictly a matter a guessing, but there is some fun in the game... (**1/2)