The Beast

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.