Posts by David Annandale

The setting is the home of a decaying family of French aristocrats. The Marquis del’Espérance (whose name is deliberately ironic) is desperate to marry his son Maturin to heiressLucy Broadhurst. Their marriage is in the will of ancestors, but with many conditions. Maturin’sgreat-uncle is desperate to stop the marriage, believing for some reason that it will kill Maturin.Meanwhile, Lucy has vivid dreams of Romilda de l’Espérance who, two centuries before, had avery erotic encounter with a beast in the woods.

Borowczyk takes the story of Beauty and the Beast to its logical conclusion, and the result isdream-like, surreal, poetic, shocking, and very funny. His style has long been noted for itsfetishization of inanimate objects and its attention to the erotics of the small details, and nowhereis this clearer than in The Beast. The visuals are gorgeously lush, drawing the viewer intoa world of heady eroticism. Among Cult Epics’ erotica releases, this is the jewel in the crown.A major release.