La Bête (1975)

Part of the special series NACHTBLENDE

“I’ve taken five showers in a row after watching The Beast, but deep inside I know that I’ll never feel clean again.” — Sea Lucas on Letterboxd

Powerful stallions, lustful beasts, sleepwalking fiancées — and a whole lot of cum! Walerian Borowczyk’s softcore horror fairy tale THE BEAST was originally intended to be part of his earlier anthology IMMORAL TALES (1973), but ultimately detached itself as an autonomous, extremely steamy fever dream in feature length. Good for us!

To prevent the impending ruin of the aristocratic family, Marquis de l’Esperance (Guy Tréjan) insists that his son Mathurin (Pierre Benedetti) marry the American heiress Lucy Broadhurst (Lisbeth Hummel). When Lucy arrives at the estate, she discovers the portrait of an ancestor and traces of a beast. That night, the creature appears to her in a dream — terrifying and seductive all at once…