Having passed the sensors for the first time in Australia, Umbrella proudly release Walerian Borowczyk’s Directors Cut of his controversial masterpiece. A black comedy of sexual manners set around an arranged wedding in an elegant château, the film gains its infamy from the final scene where the titular beast ravishes an American heiress, Lucy Broadhurst (Lisbeth Hummel), on the eve of her wedding to a French aristocrat. The graphic scenes of the beast’s couplings with its human “prey” are blatantly allegorical - emphasising the similarities between human sexuality and animalistic behaviour - but proved too heavy-handed for the censors, with the film only surfacing again now after 25 years. The sequences of the beast chasing corseted ladies through the undergrowth, though bizarre and shocking, are also highly camp and tongue-in-cheek, making The Beast a thoroughly entertaining romp and must-see for fans of cult arthouse cinema.