Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Glenn McQuaid
Starring: Chris Colfer, Alice Krige, Daniel Adegboyega, Declan Reynolds, Gabriela Garcia Vargas
The Restoration at Grayson Manor is an ostensibly madcap horror comedy that riffs on all those b-movies in which hands take on a life of their own. Think The Beast with Five Fingers, Oliver Stone's The Hand, and of course "Thing", the disembodied appendage from The Addams Family. With a bedridden protagonist/antagonist causing mayhem with the power of their mind, it also owes a debt to Richard Franklin's Ozploitation classic Patrick. Its sense of humour, however, is mostly of the British sitcom variety.
The central figure here is Boyd Grayson (Chris Colfer), a bisexual playboy who fancies himself a modern day Liberace, playing piano tunes at gay clubs. His career as a pianist appears to be ended when a freak accident involving a stray poppers bottle and a mirror leads to the loss of both of his hands.
Boyd's tyrannical mother Jacqueline (Alice Krige) has long been at odds with her son over his sexuality, royally annoyed that he has no intention of giving her a grandson and continuing the Grayson bloodline. But he's still her boy, and so she spares no expense in bringing controversial doctor Tannock (Daniel Adegboyega) to Grayson Manor to create a new set of hands for Boyd, which will be controlled by his mind. Tannock is accompanied by another mad doctor in Claudia (Gabriela Garcia Vargas), who lost her legs in a car crash but built herself a new set, and a male nurse (Declan Reynolds) who appears to take a fancy to Boyd. But as Boyd confesses, he has a dirty mind, and so his mind-controlled prosthetics begin to commit dirty deeds.
Director Glenn McQuaid's film has much early promise. Colfer and Krige have a great catty rapport, but the script uses up all its best lines in their early interactions. The sequence that sees Boyd lose his hands is brilliantly executed with a Final Destination type punchline that will have gore fans rolling in the aisles. But the movie gets stuck in a rut from that point on. All of its characters are unlikeable, so there's nobody we can get behind. This makes for a rather passive viewing experience as the characters aren't particularly interesting beyond a surface level of camp.
The movie springs to life whenever Colfer and Krige are at each other's throats, and their dynamic might have fuelled a 1970s sitcom (Grayson & Son). When The Restoration at Grayson Manor gets bogged down in its plot we begin to wonder why such a campy setup is being played so seriously. Given Colfer's Glee pedigree, it seems like a missed opportunity that McQuaid didn't go full Rocky Horror and turn this story into a musical, as it badly needs that sort of raucousness to jolt it to life.
