Beauty and the Beast (1978)

Juraj Herz, often classified as one of the Czech New Wave directors for his inventive dark comedy/horror The Cremator (1969), here takes on the classic fairy tale. The Czech title of the film is Panna a netvor, which translates into English as The Virgin and the Monster. Herz mentions in an interview included on the disc from Severin that he wanted to give it a new name because there was already a Beauty and the Beast (1946) from famed French director (novelist, playwright, poet, and artist), Jean Cocteau.

Herz’s adaptation of the story sticks fairly close to the original tale, though it truncates bits of it, allowing for a tight script with focused attention on the dynamic between Julie/Beauty (Zdena Studenková) and the Monster/Beast (Vlastimil Harapes). The Virgin and the Monster also includes an erotic subtext that, while present in the original story and previous film adaptation, was made more explicit here.

The set pieces are wonderful. Particularly the dilapidated castle, with its various refinements in the dream sequences. The depiction of the Beast/Monster was innovative. His face resembles a grotesque raptor. The mask and talon hands were crafted with great skill and attention to detail by Josef Vyleťal, who also created the title sequence and the paintings seen in the film.

Harapes is excellent as the Beast, not just due to the unique wardrobe, but because of the movements, postures, and lurking physicality he brings to the performance. Studenková is a fantastic Julie/Beauty as well. She brings a perfect blend of innocent purity that is transformed by desire into an erotic awakening, an awakening teased out over a great portion of the movie due to the Beast forbidding her to gaze upon his face (knowing she will recoil in horror if she sees him). Yet the attention and kindness he lavishes on her, coupled with his resonant voice and mysterious, unseen presence, feed her dream-fantasies with visions of an alluring, handsome prince.

The Virgin and the Monster stands as a captivating example of how a familiar tale can be reshaped through a distinct artistic sensibility. Herz doesn’t simply retell Beauty and the Beast; he filters it through his fascination with the macabre and the psychologically uncanny, creating something that feels both faithful and newly disquieting. With its dreamlike imagery, its sensual undercurrents, and its crumbling grandeur of an atmosphere, Herz’s adaptation becomes a meditation on desire, fear, and the strange ways beauty reveals itself. It is a work that invites revisiting, not only for its craftsmanship but for the peculiar mood it conjures, poised somewhere between nightmare and enchantment.