They spent money for this? Who was the audience?

I just came off reading John Gardner's Grendel - it's vital, imaginative prose hurtled off the page at me and blew my mind open. So I finally took a look at this, uploaded on YouTube.

I don't know what to say. It's not Disney, that's for sure. It's barely PBS quality.

I get that it's a low budget independent animated film, one of the few ever to come from Australia (things are much different now in the CG 3D animated world.) It's look reminded me of John Korty's Twice Upon A Time, right in the same era.

And yet, despite being more kid friendly with it's songs, look, and Grendel's befuddled, confused persona - it's not that kid friendly. Grendel still bites off the head of a guard and blood pours out. We see the queen naked and screaming in her bedroom as Grendel accosts her. Heads are mounted on spikes in Grendel's cave. The satirizing of religion of politics from the novel is intact, with backstabbing (literally) and hypocrisy abound. All this with figures that resembles play-doh, and Beowulf looking like a bearded turk...

WTF.

Everyone else may be an a**hole, but I'm not! - Harlan Ellison