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      The Beast

      1975 1h 33m Drama Fantasy List
      68% Tomatometer 22 Reviews 52% Audience Score 1,000+ Ratings A wealthy woman finds her fiancé dead after dreaming of an erotic encounter with a strange creature. Read More Read Less

      Critics Reviews

      View All (22) Critics Reviews
      Carson Lund Slant Magazine Accuse Walerian Borowczyk of perpetrating a pervy male gaze, but never accuse him of repressing anything. Nov 3, 2021 Full Review Peter Bradshaw Guardian It's ridiculous; it's tacky; it's pretentious - but it's touched with something comically sublime. Dec 3, 2014 Full Review Kim Newman Empire Magazine More charming than arousing, and solemnly silly. Rated: 3/5 Dec 3, 2014 Full Review Luis Fernando Galván En Filme The director's meticulous work - the delightfully baroque music, for example - gives the erotic and dream sequences an undeniable artistic value. [Full review in Spanish] Rated: 3/5 Aug 21, 2020 Full Review Jeremy Carr MUBI As a keen provocateur and multitalented artist, Borowczyk knew how to be sensational, and The Beast, his best film, is an appropriately surreal and dazzling mixture of farcical humor and uninhibited sensuality, all with the logic of perpetual reverie. May 23, 2019 Full Review Total Film Staff Total Film Seemingly intended as a Buñuelian farce, the pitiful animal effects and erotic scenes instead provoke derision. Rated: 2/5 Feb 7, 2019 Full Review Read all reviews

      Audience Reviews

      View All (94) audience reviews
      Audience Member The year is 2021 and the world is being taken by a neo-conservative movement. Moralists mushroom everywhere and they go around pointing their fingers in condemnation of the sexuality of others. On the other extreme, the internet has destroyed pornography as art, reducing it to short clips, a sea of debris aimed at triggering immediate gratification in the mind of its viewers akin to alcohol shots. In this context, it was refreshing to see an old-style erotic movie. This is a tale of a cursed family, a ruined house of french nobles carrying a dark secret, expecting to save their line through an arranged marriage with an English family. The plot is very well written and it grabs the viewer's attention until the end. The erotic sequences are exquisitely made, they are art in its purest form - in particular the dream sequence of the garden accompanied with the sound of Scarlatti in the background; they trigger an emotional response but they are not in any way obscene. It is like watching a renaissance or impressionist painting of nude women. In my view, the combination between the set of a french chateau and the sound of Scarlatti's harpsichord in the background is simply perfect. It also provokes the viewer by subtlety exposing him/ to the hypocrisy of those with high morals. In short, if you want to return to the world of old cinema and watch erotism as an art form (which is quite different from pornography), this is a very good choice. It has all the ingredients. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review Audience Member Packed with humor, style, and enough transgressive imagery to choke a horse, Walerian Borowczyk's carnal faery tale successfully exploits the pleasures of lowbrow European art. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/01/23 Full Review william k Controversial, semi-pornographic phantasmagoria both fascinates and appalls with its baroque and intoxicating mixture of fairy tale and obscene daydream. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member There's an identifiable line between using extreme content for social commentary and using extreme for the sake of having it there. The Beast crosses that line many times over. Any sort of social commentary or point that the movie may have is buried so far beneath the incessant sequences of grotesque, gross, and repulsive imagery that serves no other purpose than to shock the audience. A waste of a movie and an even bigger waste of time. Rated 1 out of 5 stars 01/29/23 Full Review Audience Member 1975. Banni pendant 30 ans pour cause de scènes de bestialité! Disponible sur netflix! Si on a l'esprit ouvert, ce film peut facilement devenir un excellent divertissement... campy à souhait! Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/30/23 Full Review Audience Member Most penis depictions and ejaculations of any film on Netflix and an actual plot. Beautifully photographed. French social commentary on the upper class and a prescient depiction of a priest overly friendly with two underage boys. Strangest looking fake penis of any film. Wild and crazy, not for those offended by sexually explicit films. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/11/23 Full Review Read all reviews Post a rating

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      The Beast

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      Movie Info

      Synopsis A wealthy woman finds her fiancé dead after dreaming of an erotic encounter with a strange creature.
      Director
      Walerian Borowczyk
      Screenwriter
      Walerian Borowczyk
      Genre
      Drama, Fantasy
      Original Language
      French (Canada)
      Release Date (Streaming)
      Apr 4, 2017
      Runtime
      1h 33m