The movie opens with a middle aged man, besieged by peasants during the French Revolution, introducing the story and serving as our narrator for the proceedings. He talks of a great number of years previous, when the a small French province was under a reign of terror caused by a beast, which flees from men but attacks and slaughters women and children. Indeed, our first experience of this beast (kept out of shot for now, of course) sees a battered woman fleeing across moors until finding herself at a dead end on the edge of a cliff, meeting her end as the beast grabs hold of her and repeatedly smashed her against a large rock, brutal stuff. We are then introduced to two of our principle characters, sent by the king to investigate the attacks and if possible, to bring the beast back with them for study. Grégoire de Fronsac is our main man, an explorer and expert in animals who is determined to find and study the beast. His companion is Mani (Mark Dacascos!!), an enigmatic native American who once saved his life and became his interpreter and friend. We are introduced to Mani in rip-roaring style as he fends off several local army men who are attacking a couple of peasants. The mysterious Mani uses a staff to fend off the attackers in the first of many action scenes.

Fronsac and Mani arrive at their destination and schmooze with the local aristocrats, such as Thomas d'Apcher who immediately befriends Fronsaz. Also included are the mildly unpleasant Jean-François de Morangias (Vincent Cassel - Dobermann, Shrek) who lost an arm while hunting in Africa, the suspicious priest Sardis, and the gorgeous Marianne de Morangias, sister of Jean-François. Fronsac immediately takes a liking to her, of course. The following day Fronsac gets the chance to examine a new victim of the beast, deciding her wounds could not be made by any normal creature like a wolf, which many locals believe to be responsible. The hunt for the beast begins, men on horseback and on foot alike go out into the countryside and into the woods where they force packs of wolves out into the open and a mass slaughter begins, much to the dismay of Mani. Hoping one of those dead animals is their beast, they go home to celebrate. They are given but a few days of respite however, as the attacks begin again. This is where things begin to get complicated, as new evidence of the beast is brought to light, and Fronsac meets a mysterious (and also gorgeous) Italian prostitute named Sylvia who seems to know far too much about what is going on. Fronsac also experiences problems with his developing relationship with Marianne from the machinations of members of her family. The story teases out plot strands and punctuates them with action set pieces and a fair few surprises too, before resolving the mystery of the beast of the Gavaudan Province.

The cast performances are widely excellent, especially Dacascos (though he doesn’t look 100% confident speaking French) who can only improve with each movie he does, and Samuel Le Bihan as Fronsac who is both smooth and hunky, but also convincing when it comes time for him to get in on the action. Cassel sneers his way through his role as Jean-François de Morangias to great effect, and the Emilie Dequenne as Marianne and Monica Bellucci as Sylvia both match their fabulous good looks with impressive and deep performances. The remainder of the cast backs them up effectively, though are never really at much risk of up-staging our main protagonists, though special mention must go to some of the performances made by those playing the horrid and quite deranged local peasants.