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The Beast

The Beast is a 1975 film from France, directed by Walerian Borowczyk, running 104 minutes. reelscum files it under transgressive & midnight.

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Year
1975 · 1970s films
Country
France
Runtime
104 min
Director
Walerian Borowczyk
Updated
29 Oct 2026
Obscurity
known (28/100)
Also known as
The Beast in Heat · Death's Ecstacy · The Beast
Banned in
UK

Defined in the glossary: Transgressive & midnight

⊘ Banned in UK

Refused a BBFC certificate over its bestiality content and not passed uncut in Britain until 2001.

An acclaimed animator's fairytale about a noblewoman and a well-equipped forest beast, banned on sight.

Walerian Borowczyk was a respected animator and surrealist before he turned to erotica, which is the only reason a film this filthy carries itself with a straight face. An 18th-century tale, expanded from a segment cut out of Immoral Tales, imagines a noblewoman ravished in the woods by a shaggy beast, framed by a modern story of an arranged marriage at a crumbling aristocratic estate. The notorious dream sequence got it banned across half of Europe, and the beast costume is frankly ridiculous, which Borowczyk seems to know. Underneath the scandal it is a sharp joke at the expense of the aristocracy and the Church, dressed up as the dirtiest thing you have ever seen.

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Legal options in Australia (nearest we have)

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