British Actress Blog

The Grotesque (1995)

Score: 6/10

Director: John-Paul Davidson

Stars: Lena Headey, Sting, Alan Bates, Theresa Russell.

Synopsis: A series of murders have put the police and a family on edge as a new butler is hired into the home.

Review: An archeologist named Sir Hugo ( Alan Bates ) hires a butler named Fledge ( Sting ) to service the home. As time went on, the body of a young poet turns up in a bog on the out skirts of the home. This starts a police investigation that has devastation effects on the family.

Lena Headey seems like a young Cersei Lannister in this film. She is just as sneaky, malicious, and capable as the killer in this film. Lena Headey is great at playing a scorned woman who wants revenge all the while hiding her true intentions under the guise of being an upper case lady. Sting the singer is actually a really good actor. He plays the butler Fledge comfortably well with all the charisma and charm you would imaging him to have. I am satisfied with him performance unlike Madonna in the film Die Another Day (2002) I would say that was the worst acting performance I have ever seen but she is a singer and not a actor which makes Sting's performance all the more surprising. I think Sting did better in this film than the movie Dune (1984).

The film focuses on the concept of deception. We have a crazy person killing people and sleeping with everyone around. This murderer sets up the people around him so that he gets away with his crimes. Unfortunately films of this era such as The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and like to falsely portray people of the LGBT community as serial killing psychopaths that kill people in strange way such as cannibalism a theme that is a part of both of these movies. Hollywood is on track with portraying the LGBT community correctly by hearing real LGBT people to play the parts of the characters that fall into that spectrum.

This film was also titled “Gentlemen Don't Eat Poets” and “Grave Indiscretion”. The cinematography is average most of the time. Some of the time, the camera work is wacky and inconsistent with the rest of the film’s atmosphere. The color is not great. It would seem that either the low budget post production or the fact that movies at the time of 1994-1995 seem to bleed out color and sharpness when the “tape” gets old. Those of us old enough to remember VHS know that these films did not look as bad as they do today. With digital technology the movie is better preserved ( some would say otherwise ). The lighting is very typical of the average low budget movie of this period, it’s kind of ugly and depressing. Today’s lighting and color really “pops” in order to catch the eye, especially considering marketing costs for movies have skyrocketed within the past 30 years. This films color is faded and washed out. The wardrobe is just fine for this movie. The film takes a lot of ideas from other films in the genre. The film it’s self gets better the more you watch it. The story becomes more interesting with each act. I won’t spoil anything here but the ending is questionable. It almost seems like they ran out of money and found a cheap way to cut the movie short. The film is a decent watch but not one for the family ( lots of sex ). The film is just average.

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More Films.

Cinderella (2015)

The King’s Speech (2010)

Suffragette (2015)

The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet (2013)

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011)

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