#2 - The Beast

The great thing about The Beast is its raw presentation of wild animal lust. Call it primal instincts, behavioral imprinting, or satisfying our lower desires, no matter, the evidence is true for all humans alike, that we have this biological urge to copulate - for what reasoning is your own. That is the main thrust of this classic piece of eroticism as told in a sort of fairy-tale fashion, ala Beauty and the Beast, by Polish director Walerian Borowczyk's The Beast.

In November of 2001, Cult Epics released the Director's Cut as a single disc and then discontinued about 2 years later. With the help of Borowczyk himself to create a 3-disc set to include the original print of the Director's Cut, but also managed to find, what is called, The Complete Version, which includes 4 extra minutes not found in the Director's Cut. This edition originally had Danish subtitles and had to be blacked out with overlaying English subtitles. So what you get are black bars that run through the lower part of the screen.

The box is a thick 3-disc keepcase set that stores the discs along with its nice sized booklet insert which runs about 52 pages. Each disc is printed with a different color with the same drawing on each. The cover art is a nice simple design with bold outlined lettering of the word Beast with a painting of one of the scenes from the movie (the scene is where the Beast is fornicating "doggie style" and where she, the girl in the fairy tale, enjoys it). All of this laid down on a jet black background. The studio name silently rests at the bottom edge. Perhaps the only thing on the cover I would leave out is the captioned review above the title, but overall its a balanced design. No credit is given for the cover art and little can be found about the movie posters themselves.

Upon opening, there is the 52-page booklet which is part of the limited edition set. As stated on the last page of the booklet that even it is limited to 10,000. But the contents of the booklet are not as an interesting read as one would hope. It is basically a collection of insights, reviews, poetic meanderings, interviews and interpretations of the film. The difficulty I had with it was that it was not clearly laid out what you were reading exactly and why it was there to begin with. Every page has a nice, large photo still from the movie, and on the opposite page is something or other that ranges from cursorily to directly pertaining to the movie. I hoped there was more historical information about the film itself, but this was not the case.

  Now the DVD's themselves look attractive on their own, uniform, yet distinguished. Each show a penciled drawing of the beast with a colored background of either brown, green or blue. The first disc is the director's cut, which has been remastered and cleaned up running at 94 minutes. This version is the same as the original release. The second disc has about 2 hours of extras. The major disappointment of the extras is that it is basically a silent disc. There is about 20 minutes of biographical data that you read, a 10 minutes interview with Borowcyzk, with subtitles, and then about 90 minutes of behind the scenes footage of Borowcyk in action. Unfortunately, this whole 90 minutes is silent and can be tedius. The final disc is the Complete Version which includes the extra 4-minutes.

Although the Complete Edition has non-removable subtitles with black bars across the bottom, and it does take up some of the picture, it is easy to get by once you get acclamated to the films drama. The film sounds and look good save for the artifacts that are present through some of the scenes. But personally, its kind of a nice quality that I accepted as part of the movie and its time period from which it came. It gives it a more genuine look. This version, although only 4 minutes longer, seems to add to the film a great deal and almost changes to story. Other than the content, this set is a cult classic of erotic arthouse cinema. It does not dip into the world of sexploitation, but maintains itself above water and into the realm of high eroticism, that is to say, sex with a purpose. It is a fairly explicit film, so children are going to have to wait on this one.

Cult Epics released this set as a limited numbered edition only up to 10,000. Those who have collected Cult Epics in the past know some of the dilemmas that have occurred with their numbered editions, especially with Pig and some of the Promo copies of Cinema of Death that have been found. Needless to say, limited numbered copies are attractive despite this fact. In tangent with this release, Cult Epics also re-released the original single disc edition with a newer cover to separate from the old. It is also distributed under their own name, rather than the previous distributor CAV. Overall It is a very fine release by Cult Epics, a company who is small, yet fulfills a certain niche in the rare erotic/horror genres. Many of their releases are concerned with controversial titles which adds to their allure. This being a limited edition of 10,000 certainly makes this a worthwhile pick-up as the Completed Version, in my opinion, is better watching than the Director's Cut.

Although I have some disillusionments about the booklet, it is well produced on thick paper and sharp photography. The package as a whole is not overstated, but certainly stands out on its own. This set was released in 2004, and with 10,000 units being made and the sell out has yet to be finalized and not likely for a little while more. Further, with the uncertainty of Cult Epics limited editions, such as overprinting or extending the edition size later on might cause some drawbacks and concern for collectors. We also have to consider the fact that it is released as a Single-Disc, and also in the Wolerian Borowczyk Collection, both director's cut versions, making it potentially too available even though audience is select. So, again, interest in this title is specific and limited in itself. On the other hand, if we consider the original edition, which collector's continue to pay premiums for, despite the re-release of this set and the single-disc, and the fact that this set comes with a longer, fuller version of the film, it is still a worthy set to own. For those that are interested in, perhaps, Worowcyk's best work, might find their impulsive nature seeking out this set, if not in a fever dream, then in an animalistic drive to get their hands on a copy once it is no longer available.

DVD Specs

Walerian Borowcyk's The Beast

Studio: Cult Epics Release

Date: November 16, 2004

Region 1 NTSC

No. of Discs: 3

Keepcase Booklet insert included Limited Numbered Edition

UPC: 881190002797

Catalog No.: DVD027

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