RANT!’S TOP TEN BADASS FILM CREATURES Series
In no particular order, Rant! articulates and analyses cinema’s most horrific creatures – from all genres of film.
Grendel is a bit of a mommy’s boy but fearsome nonetheless. Based on the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf, Robert Zemeckis’s film of the same name uses a motion capture process to bring the heroic tale of Beowulf, unfettered warrior and reliable king, to life. In the poem of old, Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, battles three antagonists: Grendel, who has been attacking the resident warriors of the mead hall of Hroðgar (the king of the Danes), Grendel’s mother, and an unnamed dragon. Grendel is by far the most memorable of all three fiends, in literature and in film, and Beowulf’s mighty defeat of the anarchic creature is shown by Zameckis to live on in through oral tradition in Danish folklore.
So, what the hell is Grendel? Sadly, there is no clear answer. Over the years, literary scholars have engaged in heated debate over Grendel’s nature and appearance. ‘Lost in translation’ is a rule of thumb when it comes to ancient texts and scholarly dissention is therefore par for the course. Grendel’s exact appearance is never directly described in Old English by the original Beowulf poet but what is certain is that the creature descends from biblical Cain (who was the first murderer in the Bible); “Cain’s clan, whom the creator had outlawed / and condemned as outcasts.” (106–107) – Grendel is thus the epitome of resentment and malice.
Seamus Heaney, in his translation of Beowulf, writes in lines 1351–1355 that Grendel is vaguely human in shape, though much larger:
… the other, warped
in the shape of a man, moves beyond the pale
bigger than any man, an unnatural birth
called Grendel by the country people
in former days.
Heaney’s translation of lines 1637–1639 also notes that his disembodied head is so large that it takes four men to transport it. Furthermore, in lines 983–89, when Grendel’s torn arm is inspected, Heaney describes it as being covered in impenetrable scales and horny growths:
Every nail, claw-scale and spur, every spike
and welt on the hand of that heathen brute
was like barbed steel. Everybody said
there was no honed iron hard enough
to pierce him through, no time proofed blade
that could cut his brutal blood caked claw
Peter Dickinson (1979) argued that the aforementioned description of Grendel as man-like does not necessarily imply that Grendel is meant to be humanoid, and even went as far as stating that Grendel could easily have been a dragon.
Is Grendel monster or man? The argument drags on…
Interestingly, Robert Zemeckis’s interpretation of Grendel is rather textual – monstrously humanoid. In Zameckis’s film, Grendel looks quite a lot like Gunther von Hagens’ sinewy Body World’s exhibits (it’s pity plastination doesn’t work on mythological creatures because a whole bunch of scholarly disputation could have been avoided). Grendel is gooey and decaying, but not dead. He looks like a badly deformed rotting corpse – a little like a Zombie but grosser. Crispin Glover, who acts Grendel in Zemeckis’s film, speaks in old English yet the expression pouring from Grendel’s mouth sounds more like the haunting cries of an animal in pain rather than any sort of discernible language, which merely emhances the creature’s obtuse nature.
In Beowulf, Zameckis imagines Grendel in light of his prescribed ambiguities. The creature (and his mother) is exiled outside the boundaries of human society and, like the poem, the film gives the impression that Grendel’s aggression against the Danes is rooted in loneliness and jealousy. Grendel is angered by the singing and joviality of the residents in the town’s mead hall, not because of any physical discomfort induced by the raucous, but because he is envious and is reminded of his isolation. Thus, in a great temper, Grendel retaliates by attacking the hall; killing and devouring en masse. Although he has many animal attributes and a grotesque, monstrous appearance, Grendel seems to be guided by vaguely human emotions and impulses – jealousy, loneliness, rage – which kind of makes sense because the creature is half human. In Zemeckis’s imagining, Grendel’s mother is a water-demon (the last of demonkind) and the film implies that the creature’s father is the Danish King Hroðgar – something that Grendel is aware of because he repeatedly spares the King’s life in his ferociously deranged attacks on the mead hall, demonstrating that amidst the chaos of his rabid anger is instinctually motivated intent.
But before we feel sorry for the poor rejected creature, in the poem, Grendel is described as “[m]alignant by nature” and that he has “never show[n] remorse” (137) – distinctly inhumane qualities ; the attributes of a sociopath or an animal. Grendel is badass. He is a lonely being who can’t make friends and has daddy issues so he acts out by… ripping off a few arms and cannibalising folk. Talk about childish. And that is exactly why he is terrifying; the creature’s anger cannot be quelled with reason. He also has a head the size of Mars and a very large mouth – which is not so good if you are trying to avoid being eaten.
So, no – let’s not feel sorry for Grendel.
Bring on Beowulf! – who, with no weapon (as this would be an unfair advantage over the unarmed beast), subdued Grendel by tearing the creature’s arm from his body at the shoulder; sending him running home to mommy.
As it should be.
