After a number of fairly mediocre efforts released in the early to late sixties, French auteur Claude Chabrol got back on track with the excellent Les Biches, and followed that film with Que la bête meure, an intensely involving revenge drama which puts the emphasis on the psychology of the main character, and the ethical and moral implications of the film’s events, rather than action and violence.
The movie opens in typical revenge thriller fashion, with a child being killed in a hit-and-run, and his father vowing to track down, and kill, the perpetrator. Slowly but surely, and masterfully, Chabrol alters the routine course of the revenge movie. All the main players find each other relatively quickly, and the movie thrives on the suspense of their interactions. Outside of the contrived and convenient manner in which the clue that sets the story proper in motion is discovered, the screenplay largely avoids serious pitfalls, and the dialogue is as sophisticated as the direction, as perfectly orchestrated as the camera in building tension and drama carefully and gradually.
After employing a very mobile camera for Les Biches, Chabrol takes a different approach for Que la bête meure. Que la bête meure is less stylized and more natural, with the shot composition never feeling as contrived as it sometimes did in Chabrol’s immediately preceding effort, although there is some very good and very deliberate work. Chabrol uses close-ups to great effect, particularly in a scene late in the film, set on a sail boat.
One of the striking features re Que la bête meure is that while it deliberately builds suspense, it refuses to work as a thriller, and this is most clearly seen towards the end of the film when we get the standard twists but they’re played so subtly and are so low-key that the viewer’s attention isn’t really drawn to them. The plot doesn’t really matter here, the film is about much more, it’s about ethics, about human nature, and Chabrol does well to apply these questions to the characters so that we are never far removed from the emotions they are going through, in particular the main character Charles, played by Michel Duchaussoy.
After a string of disappointing Chabrol efforts, the last two years of the sixties saw the release of two essential Chabrol films. Que la bête meure is not a perfect film, and it may not even necessarily be a great film, but it is engaging, enjoyable, intelligent, and far from empty. It also has that nagging tendency to stick to one’s thoughts after a viewing.
Prejudice Made Plausible 
I have six locks on my door, all in a row. When I go out, I lock every other one. I figure no matter how long somebody stands there picking the locks, they are always locking three of them.