by Neil Gaiman
61
Long shot. The mouth of the cave. We can hear, Grendel-style, the CHANTING of ’Olaf’ and ’Hondshew’, but we can only see the mouth of the cave. We are waiting for something to happen, and then…
Grendel SCREAMS. It’s a scream that tears at our hearts and guts, a noise as animal as it is human.
DISSOLVE TO:
62 INT. HEROT - MEAD HALL - NIGHT
62
The fight between Olaf and Hondshew is pretty much over. We hear, from a distance, GRENDEL SCREAMING. The men stop what they’re doing and look around.
WIGLAF
What was that?
BEOWULF
A wolf. Or an owl.
OLAF
Maybe it was…Grendel…
(then he laughs to show us he was only joking)
Someone cuffs him in the head. Beowulf stands up and walks across the hall, to the fire. Then, almost like a strip-tease, with the firelight behind him, he begins to take off his clothes, starting with his wolf-bear fur cloak.
WIGLAF
My lord Beowulf…What are you doing?
BEOWULF
(continuing to undress, taking off his armor)
When Grendel comes, we will fight as equals. The creature has no sword, no (more)
BEOWULF (CONT’D)
armor, no boots. I shall fight him on equal terms. Fate shall decide.
WIGLAF
Oh.
BEOWULF
Wake me when the monster comes.
He lies down on the floor, his head pillowed by his rolled-up clothes.
WIGLAF
(repeating to himself -- not quite as under his breath as he thinks)
"Wake me when the monster comes" -- what are we here for, then?
BEOWULF
(his eyes closed, to himself)
Bait.
CUT TO:
63 EXT. HEROT - MEAD HALL - NIGHT
63
The moon is almost full, and is high in the sky. Night surrounds the hall of Hrothgar like a black velvet cloak. We can hear RAUCOUS SINGING, muffled, inside.
CUT TO:
64 INT. HEROT - MEAD HALL - NIGHT
64
Beowulf is sleeping, naked, in front of the fire.
A couple of the thanes are having a knife fight with their hands tied together, and they have a small audience.
More of the thanes are standing around in a semicircle, arms linked, singing. The tune is rough-and-ready, rugby song type thing:
THANES
(singing in verse)
There were a dozen virgins, All Friesians and Franks! We took ’em for a boat-ride, and all we got were wanks!
(chorus)
OOohh, We are Beowulf’s army, we are mighty thanes, we’ll steal your cattle, and take your girls, then we’ll do it all
(more)
THANES (CONT’D)
over again!
(verse)
The prettiest of the virgins, she was the fairest swede! I told her I’d an urgin’, for where to spend my seed!
(chorus)
Singing we are Beowulf’s army, we are mighty thanes, we’ll steal your cattle, and take your girls, then we’ll do it all over again!
(verse)
The oldest of the virgins, she was a Vandal lass! I showed my mighty weapon, and she showed me her ass!
(chorus)
Singing we are Beowulf’s army, we are mighty thanes, we’ll steal your cattle, and take your girls, then we’ll do it all over again…
They SING happily and obscenely, taking it in turns to alternate verses, all joining in on the choruses. They are all sweating -- the fire’s heat has turned the hall into a sauna, and anyway, they are drunk.
CUT TO:
65 EXT. HEROT - NIGHT
65
SLOW ZOOM OUT OF Herot, its heavy stones can’t hold the JUBILANT LAUGHTER of the rowdy Thanes. A monument to mankind’s resilience, it may hold out warring hordes but it can’t hold the BOISTEROUS SINGING inside.
CUT TO:
66 EXT. THE MOORS - NIGHT
66
The song inside the mead hall seems to echo through the moors as if it were some great parabolic transmitter amplifying the fete du soir.
CUT TO:
67 EXT. DARK FOREST - NIGHT
67
WE SLOWLY MOVE through a dark forest of primordial origin. The THANE’S SONG still resounding through the night, stillness carrying it beyond the realm of man.
CUT TO:
68 EXT. THE GREAT CAVE - NIGHT
68
SLOW ZOOM INTO the mouth of a great cave into which feeds a mighty torrent of water. The SINGING, now louder than ever, seems to be coming from inside the murky burrow.
The CHANTS have reached a fever pitch. Swollen to an amplitude of unprecedented intensity. Never before has a song of happiness seemed to warp into a TORTUROUS REQUIEM. An aria of joy and light, underscored by darkness and self doubt…
69 INT. THE GREAT CAVE - GRENDEL’S LAIR - NIGHT
69
To hear it all there is GRENDEL, a deformed man of gargantuan size. His skin like stretched leather over ancient muscles. His hands clutched tightly over the sides of his oblong skullcap. His golden eyes pinched tightly shut, tears of blood drip from them. This is a monster born of pain. Once a man, now twisted into a caricature of insanity and depravity.
He writhes in pain at the song inside his head. His naked body scarring the sodden floor of the cave around him.
The dank walls, lichen covered and scared with roots, seem to close in on Grendel as if the monster were inside an immense trash compactor. A claustrophobic nightmare has manifested itself into Grendel’s twisted reality.
Indeed, the cave is growing smaller. Or is it that Grendel is growing bigger?!
The behemoth has grown so large he can barely fit into the room. The tiny bones of many Thanes litter the sarcophagus chamber, some bleached with age, others still ripe with their fruity flesh. Their armor, now dwarfed by the monster’s size, seem like small cans of ripped open tomato paste.
The monster can no longer take the haunting song of happiness inside his twisted brain. He scrambles for the exit to this tomb of song.
There is only one thing that can stop the noise inside his head. Murder. Murder of all things living and good. Murder of all things beautiful and proud.
CUT TO:
70 INT. HEROT - MEAD HALL - NIGHT
70
Beowulf, naked and laying on the floor, opens his eyes from his slumber. Almost as if he knows what’s coming.
THANES
(still singing their song in verse)
The fattest of the Virgins, I knew her for a whore! I gave her all my codpiece, And still she wanted more!
(chorus)
Singing we are Beowulf’s army, we are mighty thanes, we’ll steal your cattle, and take your girls, then we’ll do it all over again…
CUT TO:
71 INT. THE GREAT CAVE - GRENDEL’S LAIR - CRAWLSPACE - NIGHT
71
Grendel squirms through the tight crawlspace, big enough for the shoulders of twenty men. The Thane’s song has Grendel in a shrieking frenzy. Anything to escape from the cave, where the warrior’s hymn echoes against the hard stone walls.
CUT TO:
72 INT. HEROT - NIGHT
72
Beowulf smiles. He knows what’s coming.
THANES
(continuing their song in verse)
A virgin was from Norway, She cost me twenty groats! She showed me there was more ways, Than one to sow my oats!
(chorus)
Singing we are Beowulf’s army, we are mighty thanes, we’ll steal your cattle, and take your girls, then we’ll do it all over again…
CUT TO:
73 EXT. DARK FOREST - NIGHT
73
Grendel, in a frenzy of anger and hate is charging through the forest, knocking trees down in his tortured frenzy.
CUT TO:
74 INT. HEROT - MEAD HALL -
NIGHT
74
CLOSE ON: Beowulf’s open eyes.
THANES (O.S.)
(singing in verse)
There was a girl from Iceland, And she was mighty hot! She’d take a whole damn iceberg, To cool her burning tw--
The Thanes’ song is suddenly interrupted by a BANGING on the heavy wooden door.
OLAF
That’ll be Grendel now! Ooh! It’s fucking Grendel!
The Thanes LAUGH raucously at Olaf’s witticism.
Hondshew jumps from the table and turns to the other Thanes as he walks backwards toward the hallway that leads to the door.
HONDSHEW
It’s Yrsa, my sweet plum! She’s changed her mind and is ready to allow me to taste her ripe and juicy fruit!
The Thanes LAUGH LOUDLY. Hondshew, drunk as a particularly drunk drunkard, stumbles down
THE HALLWAY
to the large main double doors to open them up.
HROTHGAR
Patience, my lovely! Give a Thane a chance to open the door and invite you…
He swings the door open only to find Grendel, looking quite large and hideous.
HONDSHEW
(continuing, but a tad more sober)
…in.
Grendel SNARLS a sort of hideous laugh.
75 INT. HEROT - MEAD HALL - NIGHT
75
The other Thanes are waiting for Hondshew to come in carrying the fair woman.
THANE
Save some for us, Hondshew! We’ve got pricks that need a waxin’, as well!
Suddenly Hondshew’s bloodied and ripped up corpse is thrown from the hallway and into the great hall. It flops on top of a long table like a rag doll whose joints allow his limbs to move in any direction.
THANE
Hondshew?
But Hondshew is clearly dead as a doorknob.
And at that moment, in the flickering golden light of the fireplace, Grendel comes from out of the hallway, his SNARL is preceded by a horrific gaping grin that shows off his yellow canines. His sick skin glistens a wet shade of greenish gold, but appears to be scarred and nicked from scratching at himself nervously. His talons are simply broken nails as hard as marble, sharpened by scraping at the earthen soil of his cavernous lair. Simply put, Grendel is one scary motherfucker.
FREAKED-OUT THANE
Fucking fuck! It’s the monster! Get yourselves awake!
The freaked-out Thane kicks one of his sleeping drunken mates to wake him, but the sad warrior has drunken himself into oblivion. Even another, harder kick doesn’t help. In fact, most of the Thanes in the hall have drank so much mead that they’re dead to the world…passed out.
The singing Thanes (who are now the freaked-out Thanes) draw their broadswords…but it’s too late, for Grendel is upon them.
With one mighty swing Grendel hurls the table of Thanes aside, sending some of them into the massive firepit, and others tumbling across the floor.
Wiglaf is awoken by the CLAMOR.
Grendel LAUGHS as he stomps on TWO SLEEPING THANES, crushing life out of their slumbering bodies.
A few of the THANES WHO WERE THROWN INTO THE FIRE roll out and try to beat the flames from their bodies. Some of them, unable to continue despite being roasted alive, fall to their knees and slump too the ground in burning heaps.
The hideous creature picks one man up, who is too drunk to know what’s happening to him, and throws him down onto his bent leg, SNAPPING his back with a LOUD CRUNCH.
Grendel starts LAUGHING to himself with every dead Thane he stomps on.
Then, Grendel comes to Beowulf…naked and laying on the floor. Beowulf is like a nice, soft, shell-less morsel by comparison to the greasy, armor-wearing thugs he’s been killing. He raises his foot to crush Beowulf.
Then, from behind Grendel…
WIGLAF
Die demon!
Wiglaf strikes at Grendel’s back with his sword, but the blade BREAKS against the creatures tough skin.
Grendel spins around and strikes at Wiglaf, who manages to hold up his small shield just before the massive arm swats him aside like a defenseless kitten.
Wiglaf slides backwards and into a rack of spears which CRASH down around him.
Grendel turns around and faces Beowulf again, but Beowulf isn’t there.
Grendel SNARLS.
Beowulf, naked as the day he was born, leaps onto Grendel’s back and locks his arm around Grendel’s neck in a chokehold.
The monster jerks forward, causing Beowulf to topple head over heels over Grendel’s head. He lands on his back with a HARD THUD, knocking the wind out of his lungs.
Grendel then grabs a keg of mead and raises it above his head, with the intention of slamming it down onto the already stunned Beowulf’s head.
But before Grendel can gore Beowulf, Wiglaf is upon him, attempting to run the monster through with a spear.
Beowulf grabs a length of golden chain -- part of Hrothgar’s treasure…
ONE OF HROTHGAR’S THANES wakes up and comes to help, or die.
Beowulf lashes the chain around Grendel’s hand and pulls it tight. The monster lets out a HORRIFIC SHRIEK and rips the chain free from Beowulf.
Then, angry Grendel lashes the chain like a whip, causing it to wrap multiple times around the neck ONE OF HROTHGAR’S DRUNKEN THANES. While it can be argued that the Thane died then and there, no one would argue that he lived after Grendel yanked on the chain, causing the head to SNAP free from the body and rapidly tumble across the floor toward
76 BEOWULF
76
who kicks it aside like a soccer ball.
Beowulf is PICKED UP by Grendel, like a child holding a large doll. Grendel obviously plans to bite Beowulf’s head off, but in a maneuver made famous by Scottish soccer hooligans, but originally invented by Swedish heroes, Beowulf HEADBUTTS Grendel -- a head to forehead crash that leaves blood spilling from Grendel’s face.
Grendel is dazed and hurt, for the first time on one of its nocturnal expeditions. It begins to WHIMPER.
Beowulf takes advantage of this by biting Grendel’s cheek, at the same time that his hands fasten around Grendel’s throat.
Grendel shakes Beowulf as if trying to free himself from something that’s bad and hurting him, shaking himself desperately -- and Beowulf FLIES OFF, crashing into some dead bodies, which cushion his fall.
Beowulf then runs toward Grendel, who is trying to flee towards the open door at the end of the hallway that leads out of the mead hall, still dragging the chain along behind him.
Beowulf, fearing that Grendel might escape, dives for the chain and grabs it, causing him to be dragged along with it into the
77 HALLWAY
77
which leads to the large main doors to Herot, and ultimately to the outside.
In mid-slide Beowulf manages to hook the chain onto a large nail half sticking out of a massive support beam, jolting Grendel to a stop just in the threshold of the door, with an unsettling POP OF DISLOCATION in his shoulder.
The chain, hooked onto the nail, has yanked at the beam so hard that it has ripped it partially from the wall. Support stones, wood planks, and mud-fill begin to shower down from above as the hallway begins to partially collapse.
Grendel ROARS in agony and pain as he tugs at the chain and claws at his wrist’s shackle.
CUT TO:
78 INT. HEROT - HROTHGAR’S QUARTERS - NIGHT
78
We can hear, slightly muffled, the THUDS and CRASHES of the battle between Grendel and Beowulf going on. Hrothgar lies in bed, covered with furs, beside Wealthow, listening to the noise.
Then the NOISE STOPS.
Wealthow begins, very softly, to cry.
WEALTHOW
He is dead. Beowulf is dead.
HROTHGAR
I had hoped it would be otherwise.
Hrothgar shakes his head. Then he moves closer to Wealthow, and reaches out a hand to paw at her breast. Wealthow hits at it.
WEALTHOW
Monsters come out of your cock. How can I let you inside me, knowing you were in her?
HROTHGAR
I should never have told you.
WEALTHOW
(getting progressively more turned on as she talks)
Poor, poor Beowulf. Now he is dead, and he will never make love to me. He will never touch me with his strong hands, and his hot mouth.
Hrothgar looks uncomfortable at this.
CUT TO:
79 INT. HEROT - HALLWAY - NIGHT
79
Beowulf, who is by now cut, bruised, and bloodied sees that Grendel is captured and unraveling the chain from his wrist. Beowulf scrambles to action and runs toward Grendel.
Grendel, who sees that Beowulf is running toward him, quickens his efforts to free himself.
But it’s too late…
Beowulf slides like he was coming in to home base and kicks the door closed with his foot, SLAMMING the heavy wooden portal onto Grendel’s arm. He has Grendel caught by the arm, and while Grendel can flail wildly he can’t seem to get loose. The demon lets out the SCREAM OF A CAGED HOWLERMONKEY.
BEOWULF
(holding the door shut on the flailing arm)
Your days of blood-letting are finished, demon!
GRENDEL
Let…Grendel…free!
Beowulf is a little shocked. He didn’t expect to be able to hold a conversation with this nemesis.
BEOWULF
It speaks!