In another collaboration with screenwriter Paul Gégauff and cameraman Jean Rabier, Chabrol exquisitely renders a harrowing exploration of the modern conscience by way of Hitchcock and Hollywood. When a children’s fairy tale writer loses his only son in a hit-and-run accident, he vows revenge in the manner of an epic Greek tragedy. Although an uncanny mixture of chance and lucky guesses leads him to his prey, surrounding the perpetrator is a peculiar assortment of relatives immobilized by their own apathy and culpability. Confronted by those desperate for love and a scapegoat, the deceptive writer might have to revise his plot. With as much suspense and humor as Hitchcock yet laced with an icy social critique, Que la bête meure is a taut thriller in which the monster may be the only one not wearing a mask. – BG