The Restoration at Grayson Manor
Boyd Grayson (Chris Coffer), keyboardist scion of Irish aristocracy, is perpetually at war with his diva mother Jacqueline (Alice Krige), who is affronted by his gay lifestyle not because of homophobia (though he sees it that way) but because only having sex with men means he’ll never produce the grandchildren she needs to ensure the perpetuation of the family. This might be melodrama enough for the average queer gothic old dark house picture, but a heated argument in the prologue leads to a freak accident in which Boyd’s instinctive act of protecting the mother he hates leads to the loss of his hands. Jacqueline sees this as an opportunity and calls in cutting edge if slightly dubious prosthetics genius Dr Tannock (Daniel Adebgoyega) and a pair of nurses with different, not-entirely-medical skills, Lee (Declan Reynolds) and Claudie (Gabriela Garcia Vargas). Without hands, Boyd is even more venomous in his treatment of everyone around him … then Tannock begins work on a set of superior prostheses and artificial nerves, which eventually mean that not only can Boyd use his hands but he can manipulate them when they are detached from his wrists.
Glenn McQuaid, who also co-wrote with Clay McLeod Chapman, directed the winning black comedy I Sell the Dead and has been busy with audio horror franchise Tales From Beyond the Pale (declaration of interest – he directed my contribution ‘Sarah Minds the Dog’). This return to feature filmmaking is a hoot from start to finish, with enough bitterness, bile and black comic verbal cruelty to fill a season of a telenovela. It’s also a virtual summation of hand-based horror, melding the premises of The Hands of Orlac and The Beast With Five Fingers … Boyd’s agile, lethal, Thing-like appendages scurry throughout the film, wreaking even more mischief than their master intends. Krige, who still has the eerie presence she showed as far back as Ghost Story, has had a surge of horror activity in the last few years – notably in Gretel and Hansel and She Will and non-notably in the last Texas Chainsaw reboot – and gets a chewy morsel of a role here as a serpentine septuagenarian who can seduce, coax, cajole and browbeat anyone in range, with only her screwed-up son putting up anything like a decent fight. Colfer, too, is good as the shrill self-hating mama’s boy who shows some depths of hurt and sensitivity before unleashing his murderous id in the form of those rampaging hands.
Most of the action is confined to Grayson Manor itself, with horrific or comic scenes interrupted by cutaways to portraits of ancestors implacably looking down on the dog-end of a supposedly distinguished line … despite the wigs and stiff poses, they all look a right load of villains.
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