BEASTS {1976}

 THE GREAT NIGEL KNEALE'S TELLY SERIES! 

Of course, we all know the great Nigel Kneale who gave us not only the QUATERMASS TV series and films but also the 1954 telly version of 1984 which made Peter Cushing a star, the Hammer Horrors THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN OF THE HIMALAYAS and THE WITCHES, the Ray Harryhausen steampunk FIRST MEN IN THE MOON, the 1989 film of THE WOMAN IN BLACK, the magnificent TV movie THE STONE TAPE and many more delights of fright.  Well, smack dab in the middle of the 1970's, Kneale gave telly audiences a six episode series called BEASTS which focused on the 'beasty' angle of horror in each hour-long programme.  And here, almost smack-dab in the middle of the Countdown to Halloween, I'm going to go over the series and rate the episodes in what I believe to be best to worst order.  Needless to say, all 6 episodes are top notch in quality but some work for me better than others.  So here they are, the worst to best episodes of BEASTS.

#6.  BUDDYBOY --  I'm sorry I just couldn't get on board with this one.  Points go to Tom for originality with this one.  Basically the plot concerns a guy named Dave (Martin Shaw) who buys the derelict and disused Hubbard's Dolphinarium (kind of a mini-Sea World in the middle of the city) in order to use the building to make porno movies.  Yeah, I told you the plot was original.  Can't say I've ever seen THIS before. 

Shifty landlord Hubbard (shifty Wolfe Morris) seems almost desperate to unload the place -- apparently because it's haunted by the ghost of a performing dolphin named Buddyboy.  OK, so I TOLD YOU this was something you've never seen before and that clinches it.  However, the concept of a dolphin's ghost just isn't frightening no matter HOW intelligent Buddyboy was in life.  The dolphin's ghost seems to be using feeble-minded former employee Lucy (Pamela Moiseiwitsch) as it's familiar and appears to possess the woman at some point.  All this makes very little sense and is frankly silly but the cast does it's best, I suppose.  Wolfe Morris plays it WAY over the top (and I'm not sure there was any other way to play this) and Pamela Moiseiwitsch . . . . I mean, how the hell do you play a part like this???  There's no shade I can throw her way with such a bonkers part so yeah, she's fine as well.  Martin Shaw is solid and somehow manages to play it all with a perfectly straight face.

#5.   THE DUMMY  --  This episode probably would've been better as a half hour as it really seems to go on and on and on which is the main problem with it.  Clyde Boyd (Bernard Horsfall) is a just-this-side-of-a-has-been actor who has starred in a series of monster movies as the monster called 'The Dummy'; he has played the monster facelessly as he's encased inside a rubber monster suit.  Boyd's wife Sheila (Patricia Haines) has left him for a more successful actor Peter Wager (Simon Oates) and Clyde's life seems to be crumbling around him.  Unfortunately, Wager is cast in the current film 'The Revenge of the Dummy' and this caused Clyde's mind to snap. 

Feeling he can't go on, Boyd spends much of the middle of the episode snivelling in his dressing room to his friend producer 'Bunny' Nettleton (Clive Swift).  Bunny tries to support his mentally-fragile friend while worrying about the fate of the production and the fact that he only has venerable actor Sir Ramsey (Thorley Walters) under contract for one more day and, if they don't get his scenes in the can, they'll lose him.  Bunny finally manages to convince Clyde to put on the monster suit and go back before the cameras.  Unfortunately, Clyde goes back on set and promptly guts a crew member; thinking he's actually the monster.  The actor's mind and personality have been subsumed to the Dummy!  The first act and, particularly, the third act are both good but it's that middle act which tries the patience.  There's just not enough to sustain an hour programme.  The cast once again is excellent; filled with wonderful British character actors.  Bernard Horsfall will forever be Chancellor Goth from the DOCTOR WHO story THE DEADLY ASSASSIN (as well as a couple other Dr. Who appearances.  The beloved Thorley Walters is the veteran of many Hammer Horrors, of course, while we have Simon Oates from THE TERRORNAUTS (which I'll be talking about a little later in this Halloween Countdown so staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay tooned), the lovely Patricia Haines from THE VIRGIN WITCH and Clive Swift (probably best known from KEEPING UP APPEARANCES).  

#4.   WHAT BIG EYES  -- this episode and the following episode could easily switch places as their pretty evenly average.   Which is shocking since this episode stars the great Patrick Magee as Leo Raymount; a scientist/biologist who has been experimenting with wolves to prove his theories about lycanthropy. 

Raymount has a laboratory secreted behind a pet shop run by his middle-aged daughter Florence (Madge Ryan).  Raymount's iffy experiments are discovered by an investigating RSPCA officer Bob Curry (Michael Kitchen).  An episode about werewolves starring Patrick Magee sounds like a slam dunk; however, the story doesn't really go anywhere, to be honest.  Has Raymount's blood transfusions with a wolf manages to turn him into a werewolf?  Well, we're left with a rather anticlimactic ending here.  Once again, the entire cast is wonderful but I feel the ending let's the story down.  Having said that, I still think this is a good episode worth a look.

#3.  SPECIAL OFFER   --  again this and WHAT BIG EYES could switch places probably but I rate this slightly higher because of the werewolf story's letdown ending.  This is in fact the first of the really effective episodes.  Taking place inside a small supermarket called Brightways, the plot concerns a pimple-faced, stringy-haired cashier named Noreen (perfectly played by Pauline Quirke) who is unpopular with the Brightways staff, the customers and pretty much the entire world.  Shy, awkward and clumsy, the store manager Colin Grimley (Geoffrey Bateman) wants to fire her; especially after store product starts to be knocked over and broken around Noreen.  When the girl insists it wasn't her, Grimley jokes that it must be the supermarket's funny animal mascot Brightways Billy, then. 

As the destruction begins to escalate, Noreen insists that she did see some sort of animal just for a second and begins calling it 'Billy'.  At his wits' end, Grimley calls his boss Mr. Liversedge (Wensley Pithey) and, while on the phone with him, they hear screaming coming from the back room.  A cashier has seem some sort of creature and runs screaming from the store never to return.  Hearing the screaming on the phone, Mr. Liversedge comes to the store to investigate.  He has a talk with Noreen and informs Grimley that this could be a case of poltergeist activity caused by an adolescent; he's seen this happen once before in his life.  Liversedge suggests that Noreen is in love with Grimley and this sexual tension is causing the poltergeist activity; he suggests Grimley and the staff be nicer to Noreen . . . . and keep her in the back stock room away from the customers.  They try this for a while but the poltergeist activity keeps ramping up and causing heavy damage plus frightening the customers.  Grimley, fed up, sacks Noreen.  However, even with Noreen gone . . . the poltergeist activity continues.  Is there really a 'Billy' haunting the store?  Do I really have to keep saying the cast is excellent here?  In fact, the cast of all the episodes is equally excellent.  Quirke perfectly portrays the ugly duckling Noreen and Bateman is suitable smarmy as the disagreeable Grimley.  

#2.   BABY  --  here we have probably the most Nigel Knealean episode as it touches on tropes the writer utilized frequently in everything from the Quatermass series/films to THE STONE TAPE.  That is, this is the most 'folk horror' episode of the lot. Jane Wymark and Simon MacCorkindale star as married couple Jo and Peter Gilkes.  Jo is pregnant and Peter is a young veterinarian and the pair have just moved into an old house in the country.  The house is quite ancient and needs renovation and workmen are currently on the job.  After the workmen have knocked off for the night, Peter decides to continue knocking down a brick wall off the kitchen because he's a bit of an annoying know-it-all.  Inside a niche in the brick wall Peter finds a clay jar sealed with wax which contains the mummified form of a  . . . . what, exactly. 

It's some sort of animal that resembles a piglet but with odd features which are frankly disturbing.  Peter consults with his vet mentor Dick Pummery (the wonderful T.P. McKenna) about the creature against the wishes of a horrified Jo who just wants to get rid of the awful thing.  The feeling of unease and impending doom are ramped up nicely throughout the episode and the atmosphere of witchcraft and old wives's tales is thick.  Late in the episode, Pummery's hilariously makes a semi-drunken appearance at the Gilkes' dinner party played by the equally marvelous Shelagh Fraser.  The acting by Joan Wymark is superb as is the comic turn provided by Fraser.  McKenna is his usual plummy self and it's perfect for his rather drunken vet who delights in taking the piss out of Peter.  MacCorkindale is . . . . well, MacCorkindale.  Never a particularly good actor but more of another pretty face, MacCorkindale over-emotes (as is his wont) with his over-elastic mouth; especially scenes where he is short-tempered and dismissive of his wife (which is almost all the time).  Peter Gilkes is meant to be rather unlikeable and MacCorkindale does nicely give him this asshole-ish edge.  So, in that aspect, he's rather perfectly cast as a character who thinks he knows everything but in fact is quite dim.  Sadly, the mummified pig creature never comes to life and eats Peter but the episode is very atmospheric and eerie.

#1.  DURING BARTY'S PARTY --  Just edging out "BABY" as the best episode of BEASTS (in my humble) is this episode which is basically a two-hander between Elizabeth Sellars and Anthony Bate as Angie and Roger Truscott (no, NOT Prescott!!!):  a rather well-to-do couple living in a well-appointed large home in the country suburbs.  Angie notices a car that's been parked across the road for quite a while now.  It could be a pair of lovers having a snog . . . but isn't the car door slightly open?  Yes, it is, isn't it.  Roger comes home from work to find Angie blaring a 'rock & roll record' at full volume.  The song is the Isley Brothers classic "Shout" by, I think, Lulu.  I could be wrong.  I'm not sure.  When asked why, Angie says they have a rat in the house and she played the loud music to hopefully scare it away.  She's heard it scratched and chewing under the floorboards all evening. 

Soon, they begin to hear two rats scratching.  Then more.  Turning on the radio, the couple hear the "Barty's Party" programme which has bulletins of sightings of swarms of rats being seen in the area.  The rats have possibly developed an immunity to poisons.  Angie calls into the radio show as the scratching gets louder and insists that her house is being overrun and to ask for help and advice.  At first Barty (Colin Bell) treats it as a joke but soon begins to take Angie seriously.  Of course, Roger is a bit of an overbearing asshole (this seems to be a pattern with the men/husbands in this series) and insists Angie is imagining things.  But pretty soon, Roger too is convinced and both become more terrified . . . especially when the phone line is "cut" -- just before Angie gives her address to Barty.  In a deliciously twisted bit of business, Barty says that, even though they were cut off, he will still alert the police to come to the aid of a Mrs. Angie Prescott.  You see, when Angie called into the radio station and gave her name, it was misheard.  So the authorities are looking for the wrong name!  Brilliant.  The scratching and clawing gets almost deafening while the desperate Truscotts try to ward off the onslaught of rats.  This is like a suburban version of "THREE SKELETON KEY" and the tension is beautifully ratcheted up.  Sellars as Angie is superb while Bate as Roger, at times over the top, is suitably terrified by the end of the episode.  And there's a nice, nasty twist at the end.

Nigel Kneale's 6 episode series BEASTS is a tad hit and miss but even the misses are worth watching.  Maybe with the exception of BUDDYBOY.  I still can't get into that one.