BEOWULF & GRENDEL (2005)
Gerard Butler, Stellan Skarsgård, Ingvar E. Sigurðsson, Sarah Polley, Eddie Marsan, Tony Curran, Rory McCann
Directed by Sturla Gunnarsson
Daneland (Denmark). Circa 700 AD. A giant troll (unlike any J.R.R. Tolkien description) with his young son, Grendel, is being chased on a high seaside cliff by King Hrothgar and a group of vikings. Dad tells his blond boy to hide and is slain by arrows from the soldiers, with his body falling to the beach below. Peeking out from a ledge, Grendel is seen by Hrothgar but spared. Left alone, the orphaned boy takes his father's severed head (that he hacked off with a sword) back to his cave where he places it in a shrine. Years pass and Grendel has grown into a muscular behemoth who is exacting revenge against the Danes. Hrothgar likes to unwind in his great mead hall (Heorot Hall) but has been unable to enjoy himself among his people for quite some time as Grendel haunts him like a plague by raiding his village at will, and killing his soldiers in bloody fashion. Drunken, depressed & tired of this inconsiderate harassment, Hrothgar gets help from a fellow kinsman, King Hygelac of Geatland (southern Sweden) who sends his best soldier, loyal and war-weary Beowulf, along with 13 fighters, and the group sail to Daneland. When the heroic Beowulf (whose exaggerated reputation precedes him) and his men arrive, they find Hrothgar in despair and his community frightened from Grendel's nightly pestering. The villagers are so terrified that they've turned to a blathering Irish monk for solace, Father Brendan, who urges them to abandon paganism and convert to Christianity. Beowulf and his men enter the mead hall, admire the comely buxom wenches, and vow to kick Grendel's ass.
They have their first encounter with Grendel when they hear him tromping around outside. Prepared to face him, Grendel however urinates on the door, repulsing everyone as troll piss smells unbelievably nauseating, and he flees. Having steeled themselves to fight Grendel, they are puzzled by the big burly brute not obliging them. Their first search for Grendel unsuccessfully brings them to a desolate snowy landscape, and later after witnessing villagers being baptized, Beowulf meets Selma, an ambiguous villager who lives in the outskirt hills, apart from her neighbors. Regarded as a witch (but is really an insightful seer), she tells Beowulf to be careful. But by Odin's beard and Valhalla, Beowulf and his men didn't travel all this way for their mission to go belly up, and to not engage in a show of battle. After a little training with his men, Beowulf visits Selma again (whom to her surprise is not there to get in her pants) for more insight and when he catches a glimpse of Grendel outside her hut, he chases him and angrily spits out threats of vengeance. But he is told by Selma that Grendel will not confront him because the Geat has done him no harm. When Beowulf and his men are taken to the cliff by a mentally afflicted villager, they find Grendel's cave and when they leave by boat (intending to come back with rope to scale down the treacherous escarpment), one of the men is grabbed by a mysterious webbed hand that lunges out of the water, almost pulling him in but the figure swims away. Returning to the cave, the men find piles of bones, and one of the soldiers, Hondscioh, mutilates the mummified head of dead Dad to the silent & shocked astonishment of the others.
That night, an enraged Grendel returns to destroy the mead hall, where he rag dolls & makes short work of the Geats, and kills Hondscioh for the desecration by snapping his neck. As Grendel runs up through the rafters, Beowulf traps him by ensnaring his right wrist in a rope. Grendel jumps but hanging in the air, he defiantly cuts off his entire arm from his arm pit with a broken spear tip allowing him to fall down and run away. As he escapes capture, Beowulf stares in almost catatonic amazement -- after yet another confrontation that his made him & his men look like a band of incompetent clodhoppers. Staggering along a beach, Grendel wanders into the water and collapses dead where the webbed hand reaches up and guides the body further out from shore. In the morning, a pitiful Hrothgar tells Beowulf that he killed Grendel's father for stealing a fish and spared the boy out of pity; looking remorseful for the miserable curse it brought. That night, the severed arm is nailed to a post in the mead hall during celebrations and Beowulf drops in at Selma's where she tells him that Grendel had once raped her, which left her with more empathy than enmity. [The way she conveys her quiet politeness and complacent acceptance of being violated is bothersome to say the least]. As Beowulf and Selma have a roll in the hay (Really? A story of sexual assault followed immediately by fucking?), the mysterious water figure takes to land, killing Father Brendan. The mermaidy sea hag wanders into the mead hall and lets out a shrill scream when it sees the nailed severed arm.
She uses it to crush Hygelac to death and as she leaves, she is seen by a redheaded boy that enters Selma's hut -- hers & Grendel's son whom she has kept secret. The next morning, Beowulf and his men ride horseback along the beach where they come across Hygelac's severed head impaled on a stick. Entering a lagoon in a cave, Beowulf swims through a passageway and emerges at the other end on a waterfall side, where he finds Grendel's body, the severed arm placed by it, and a mound of treasure. He's attacked by the sea hag -- Grendel's mourning mother -- who attempts to strangle him, but he smashes her head with a rock and uses a sword to kill her. Selma's son runs toward him also wielding a sword, with Beowulf realizing just who he is. After a funeral service for Hygelac, Beowulf visits Selma for a final time warning her that the intolerant Danes will kill her son if they find out about his existence. Saying that he is not like the Danes, she ironically equates his own action of sparing the child after the death of its father, just as Hrothgar did the many years ago. Back on the beach, Beowulf has buried Grendel with a rock monument built out of respect to the fallen troll, and unaware that he was seen from a distance by Selma's son, mother and child then watch as Beowulf and his men sail back to Geatland. The Beowulf and Grendel story is an epic Anglo-Saxon poem first written in the 11th Century, and considered the oldest text in the English language. [In 1731, the original manuscript was severely damaged by fire, along with several other medieval writings in London].
The perilous quest of this warrior matched against a beast has multiple tellings such as a 1981 animated film; a 1999 sci-fi feature film; a 2007 Sci-Fi Channel TV-movie; a 2007 3D-animated film; and numerous incarnations in literature & novels, video games, a board game, comics & graphic novels, music, opera, live theatre, and TV. [For another movie that loosely follows the Beowulf and Grendel storyline, check out 1999's THE 13TH WARRIOR, which itself is an adaption of Michael Crichton's 1976 novel, 'Eaters of the Dead']. BEOWULF & GRENDEL can largely be seen as a study of outsiders: Selma is a wise former whore and an outcast for her ability to foretell death, and is bestowing life lessons while alienated from her peers. Father Brendan is a hostile Celt who preaches the advent of his religion as the only true worship -- one that will emerge as a sweeping invader to overtake Norse beliefs. Beowulf is a hired gun brought in to take down a menacing nuisance whom becomes a formidable foe, and this enemy is a foreign problem that turns the Geat's personal troubled state of trying to understand into one of increasing complexity filled with regret. And lastly, Grendel has been given a sympathetic spin as a scourge born of innocence and grudge, who is more of a misunderstood, persecuted and tragic victim than a fiendish, murderous barbarian-remnant said to have descended from Cain. (The "stinking" aspect of him still applies). This 2005 rendition is not a bad movie but neither is it one-dimensional even though some of the characters could have been padded a bit more and better developed.
And as Selma, Father Brendan, Grendel's father, and Grendel's son are all new additions in this version, so too is the traditional hero vs. monster / good vs. evil dynamic which is specifically laid out as not so cut n' dry this time around but with a meaning to the madness. [In the poem, Beowulf kills Grendel, becomes King of the Geats, dies 50yrs later from mortal wounds after trying to slay a dragon, is cremated, and has a tower built to honor his legacy]. Filmed in Iceland, the cinematography is magnificent with its excellent barren display of wind-swept, rugged geography, but BEOWULF & GRENDEL on a whole however is uneven and falls short in a couple of main areas: At times, the editing was bumpy and the story meanders in long spots. Polley is completely miscast as Selma for while an accomplished actress, (and eye-catching as a fiery redhead) she comes across as an alterno/gothy/raver party chick fresh from a Lollapalooza, and both her monotone flat accent and performance feel like she's bored and phoning it in. And for a period piece that does a good job presenting a 6th Century Middle Ages setting, there's something off-putting in hearing characters dropping f-bombs that are just too modern for contemporary speak, thus feeling out of place and was a little distracting -- even if the swearing for the historical era was still accurate and rife. Regardless of these surrounding drawbacks however, overall, the movie should be seen because of the story's many presentations. And this Grendel is considered to be the most realistic depiction in this legendary fable.
TROLLHUNTER (2010)
Otto Jespersen, Glenn Erland Tosterud, Johanna Mørck, Tomas Alf Larsen, Hans Morten Hansen, Robert Stoltenberg, Urmila Berg-Domaas
Directed by André Øvredal
Thomas, Johanna, and Kalle are 3 college film students in Norway making their way into vast mountainous hinterland to film a documentary about illegal bear poaching. While checking out a dead bear and strange-looking tracks, they interview hunters and Finn Haugen, the head of the Norwegian Wildlife Board. The students are pointed towards another hunter, Hans, who prowls around in his battered Land Rover that is mysteriously scratched up from large claw marks. Traveling by ferry along the fjord coastlines, and driving on rainy countryside roads, the 3 seek him out in hopes of an interview and upon finding him are automatically rebuffed, but set off on foot following him nonetheless. Having picked up his trail to a campsite, one night in a spooky forest, after seeing mysterious flashing lights and hearing roaring, Hans comes bolting out of the dense woods, right at them shouting "troll!", and Thomas is attacked & bitten by a large creature. Escaping in Han's truck, and patching up Thomas' wound with duct tape, the trio find their own vehicle completely wrecked, and Hans admits that he is not a bear hunter but infact hunts trolls (as the only single licensed person to do so in Norway) as part of a secret government branch. Shocked and skeptical but excited, when the students again ask to film Hans' seemingly adventurous "work," (having already scrapped their original project idea and switched gears to make him their new subject) he again refuses but then relents, allowing them to tag along as observers. Agreeing to obey his instructions, they coat themselves in "troll stench," a disgusting excretion of slime meant to mask the smell of Christian blood(!) which trolls can sniff out at ease.
After ensuring the trio also don't believe in God or Jesus, Hans whips out a large, hood-mounted, flash strobe lamp that high-beams potent UV rays (ala sunlight) which turn trolls into stone (ala Medusa) or sometimes causes them to explode. The group venture back into the forest and are chased by a 3-headed troll known as a Tusseladd (or Tosserlad), which Hans kills and sledgehammers into rubble. Afterwards, he bitterly grumbles telling the trio he's sick of the hazardous job, and of risking his grizzled life for peanuts from his tightwad taskmasters; with Hans now wanting the students to expose the truth, in part to his own complex atonement for long-participating in bringing the trolls to near-extinction. Finn arrives with a team known as the TSS - Troll Security Service, to plant a dead bear carcass (scapebears(!) imported from Poland) and fake tracks, and warns the students to cease & desist with their filming, threatening to confiscate their tapes, but without doing so. Hans tells the students that Finn's job (as the bureaucrat) is to keep the existence of trolls hush-hush and come up with cover stories, while his sole task (as the civil servant) is to kill any trolls that stray from their boundaries toward the population (power lines are really electric fences to keep them penned in). It just so happens there has been an unusual spike in hostile troll activity with the dangerous creatures venturing out further from their normal native territories. Needing a blood sample for study, Hans wears a crude pots & pans homemade suit, and looking like a knight stepping into a Monty Python sketch (and would further have Tony Stark laughing heartily), sets a trap on a bridge by using some sheep, a goat, and bucket of blood as bait which lures a troll known as a Ringlefinch.
Physically smashed around, he successfully obtains the sample, and takes it to a TSS veterinarian (a softy who really cares about the plight of the trolls and speaks of their Vitamin D deficiency) and is told it'll take several days before the results come back. The group visit a farm with several uprooted trees scattered about, and apprehensively follow troll tracks into an abandoned mine leading into a deeper cave. When a pack of trolls (mountain kings known as Dovregubbens) suddenly return, the group hide out of sight to the sound of ungodly snoring and horrendous toxic farting. Trapped and scared stiff in the world's worst-ever wind chamber, a trembling Kalle confesses he is a Christian to which his scent is discovered. Found by the trolls, the group flee in panic from the lair but Kalle is killed. The duo become a trio again with Malica joining them to take over as camerawoman. Since she's a Muslim, Hans is perplexed as to how the trolls will react to this. Finn returns, this time to direct Hans north to "fix" the troll problem, and the group uncover evidence of a giant troll on the loose known as a Jotnar. As Thomas falls ill, the troll blood sample is revealed to contain rabies thus explaining their erratic and threatening behavior. Unlucky Thomas has been infected from being bitten earlier, and after several attempts in pursuit, Hans kills the massive Godzilla-sized Jotnar using a rocket-launched shell that turns the troll into stone. Once back on the highway, Finn and his agents show up again, this time intent on taking the students' footage.
But Thomas runs away with the camera and when he drops at the side of the road, a truck stops next him just as the tape cuts out -- with the driver presumably the finder of his last roll of film. An ominous epilogue states the 3 students disappeared never to be heard from again. With a slight compatibility to DISTRICT 9, this mockumentary blends the found footage stylings of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, and CLOVERFIELD both of which at their most tiresome have their ingredients of being limited, anemic and pedestrian. Thankfully, that narrow bad rap is not the case here as people talk about trolls, search for trolls, and big pay off -- they find trolls. A lot of them. Further adding troll history and giving us various types, names and sizes that visually, instead of being seen through the poor quality of irritating shaky cam and awash in pitch dark with infrared, we get solid sequences in firm steady shots with sharpness. All while glimpsing great landscapes of Norwegian scenery that would do tourist promotion proud. And then there's the physical appearance of the trolls -- a striking creative look of top-notch CGI fx that is highly impressive, first-rate, and particularly shown very well in the night. Forget anything resembling small, runty, cute Disney-esque, mohawked rainbow goblins, or Middle-Earth faery tale fantasy: these nocturnal, mythical creatures here of Scandinavian folklore are colossal, big phallic-nosed, grotesquely malformed, wart-ridden, ferocious hairy beasts, ready to stamp the unfortunate living shit out of everything beneath them, and chow down on some livestock or humans when they get the munchies.
Aside from a little sluggishness, a few loose ends, and some bland acting, TROLLHUNTER is full of regional inside jokes thanks to various cast members being comedians whose dry humor banter was heavily improvised. The gruff, tired and unfazed Hans who becomes the focal point, and is paired with the students who are in over their heads, is a recipe for witty balance. But it's easy to see how this can be lost in droll translation, and while the emphasis is on the characters, the movie for many might be a mixed bag as it oddly makes the absurd tongue-in-cheek content & context seem far more dramatic and serious, for as the tone of credibility & realism is played straight, it is left for the viewer to find the amusement in the proceedings. A perfect example is the movie's meta ending of Norway's then-Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg, speaking at a press conference about the country's power lines. When he admits to having "trolls," this was actually a real clip in which he was infact speaking about oil fields and energy production, but the snippet was cleverly dubbed & spliced into the finale to seem like an unexpected, plain slip-of-the-tongue remark now holding an explosive and scandalous revelation for public record. And the stunned look on Finn's face who instantly turns to Stoltenberg is priceless. TROLLHUNTER is imperfect but still one of the far better, smarter, and more inventive found footage entries in this horror subgenre that is all too easily, and continually knocked for restrictive trappings and stale output.
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