La Bête

AKA The Beast, The Beast on Heat and Death's Ecstasy.

The first time you experience Walerian Borowczyk's horny horror classic from 1975 you may die of shock − that is if you don't die laughing. Should you survive through to the end you will certainly never look at bedsteads in country hotels in quite the same way ever again.

The kind of bestial bonding that goes on in the various versions of King Kong is remarkably tame in comparison; after all, the big furball just wants a blonde Barbie to play with.

Borowczyk's creature clearly has more lustful intentions, but the message of the film appears to be that even the most cachondo of canines is no match for the corsetted female libido − a fact which sends the usual ripples of terror through the cassocks of Catholicism. I could never understand why The Exorcist was banned for so many years, but in the case of The Beast I'm surprised that it was ever un-banned! The gist of it has been ably summarised by one user on IMDB: "It's the only film I have ever seen which attempts to mix a fairy tale, a sort of comedy of manners and faked explicit bestiality."

This was our second viewing and we were still fairly shocked and amused as the DVD version has plenty of extra moments that were deemed unsuitable even for viewers of Film Four Extreme a couple of years ago. Still, we were able to pay a bit more attention to the rich gothic symbolism, including a fetishistic approach to woodland molluscs.