Glenn McQuaid’s The Restoration at Grayson Manor takes audiences to Grayson Manor, where restoration is afoot. However, during the restoration, an accident causes Boyd Grayson (Chris Colfer) to lose both of his hands. His mother, Jacqueline Grayson (Alice Krige), invests in a team of experts using a new technology to help her son — well, at least that’s what we assume.
The opening sequence shows Jacqueline walking into Boyd’s latest one-night stand with a guy, which leads to an argument between Boyd and Jacqueline over the Grayson lineage. Suddenly, though, a mirror drops, and in an unusual act of caring, he pushes his mother out of the way. As a result, both hands are cut off with blood going everywhere, and the hookup is now dead in the hallway.
The opening sequence perfectly sets the audience up for the pure, campy horror to come. Alongside this camp, too, though, is the queer horror of being in an environment that continuously tries to repress one’s identity. Jacqueline continually reminds Boyd that the Grayson lineage will end because of him, but their name — and their manor — must be continued. The expansive manor is covered in portraits of Boyd’s great-grandfather, a harsh shadow he is expected to conform to. It’s extremely claustrophobic.
The manor becomes a character in its own right, and the audience starts to believe, in a sick way, that the house deliberately let the mirror fall to trap Boyd. The house becomes his personal hell. The Restoration of Grayson Manor is a great atmospheric horror, one that uses not a madman or a creature, but its setting to inflict fear. Boyd is stuck in a place where he can never truly feel free; once he thinks he can cut loose, it suddenly pulls him back in.
The film does have a campiness that comes through in the performances, but also in the revelation that Jacqueline hired Dr. Jeffrey Tannock (Daniel Adegboyega) to create her son two prosthetic hands that have more personality than you would expect.
At face value, the idea of two dangerous hands as the horror threat sounds a bit silly, but the film knows its silliness and finds fun ways to make these hands threatening. The hands are made with spectacular effects and, especially in one fun callback to Alien (1979), gory blood work ensues. Even if it’s silly, it’s also terrifying.
Colfer and Krige are a great double act with fantastic chemistry as a son and mother who despise each other. They each know what snide remarks will cut the deepest. However, underneath this hatred are two people who clearly need each other. Who else would they have?
The Restoration at Grayson Manor balances its campiness and fear of not being accepted to create a stay at the Manor that is both comical and claustrophobic.
Review Courtesy of Matthew Allan
Feature Image Courtesy of Bankside Films