Soul of a Beast is "zero autobiographical," Merz explained, but the film is very much inspired by drastic moments in his life. Merz became a father for the first time at the age of 18, and his best friends died tragically at almost the same time.
The shooting took place in Zurich. 130 hours of material was produced at Limmatplatz alone. Merz, who has worked primarily as a cameraman in the past, shot Soul of a Beast with Fabian Kimoto. Born in Münsterlingen, Switzerland, in 1982, the cameraman has Swiss and Japanese citizenship. Soul of a Beast is Kimoto's first feature film work after several documentaries and short films.
A first screening took place on August 6, 2021 at the Locarno Film Festival. The theatrical release in German-speaking Switzerland was planned for March 10, 2022.[8] It was screened at the Atlanta Film Festival in late April 2022.
Noemi Ehrat from Filmbulletin writes that Soul of a Beast is generally more an emotional experience than intellectual enjoyment. The strong colors in the 4:3 format and the phenomenal soundtrack would make it easy to dive into Gabriel and Corey's world and imagine yourself on a trip where it is never clear what is real and what is imaginary. It's a pity that Tonatiuh Radzi doesn't get more screen time, since the picture of his character bloodstained, the cigarette casually in the corner of his mouth, driving through a tunnel on his moped, is probably one of the great film moments not only of Lorenz Merz, but of the Swiss movies.