The Beast

Walerian Borowczyk's notorious 1975 erotic fantasy revision of Beauty and the Beast began life as a short film in the director's 1974 anthology film Immoral Tales, but was more of a sketch than a fleshed-out story about a countess and a bear-like beast that has an insatiable sexual appetite. The Polish filmmaker wound up dropping the short from Immoral Tales and expanded it into The Beast, which tells the tale of an American heiress (Lisbeth Hummel) who arrives at the crumbing French estate of her betrothed, where she is overcome by visions/sexual fantasies concerning a countess (Sirpa Lane) who once lived in the manor and cavorted with a wild beast that prowled the estate. Borowczyk earned a cult following with his erotic fantasy and horror films, straddling art cinema and exploitation, and The Beast is one of his most explicit, filmed with an elegance that lends some measure of grace to a truly perverse dream play of primal urges and corrupt aristocrats (while making literal the implied sexual tension buried in so many fairy tales). The countess, a willing partner of the weird, hairy beast (an actor in a rather ratty ape suit), runs naked through the woods, arouses the creature (Borowczyk repeatedly cuts to close-ups of its erect member, a special effects monstrosity), and indulges in all kinds of sex. Featuring explicit nudity, masturbation, and animal copulation, this would certainly be considered pornographic in some communities. Handsomely mastered from a new restoration, extras include behind-the-scenes featurettes, interviews, bonus short films, and an introduction by film critic Peter Bradshaw. A strong optional purchase for more adventurous collections. (S. Axmaker)