Inner Monsters in Sexy Beast

Abstract

Although Sexy Beast (2000; dir. Jonathan Glazer) is not a traditional horror film, it does contain horrific elements and raises questions about the motivation of characters in horror films. Thus, the frightening Don Logan (Ben Kingsley) is not a conventional monster; however, he does provoke some horrific reactions from the four British expatriates living in Spain. Because of his power to project himself as a monster in the minds of these characters, he raises questions about character motivation within the genre. The focus of this article is on the ways that characters (and viewers) respond to Logan's threats, abuse, and verbal assaults, and finally to Logan's killing. Particular attention is paid to how the film's editing and tension between realistic decor and subjective imagery objectify and pair Logan's monstrous power with characters' fears. For the film is a study in the psychology of horror as is seen by noticing how the film uses mise-en-scene and dialogue to contrast the surface of the narrative world with the underlying fears of the characters. If Sexy Beast is not a traditional British horror film, one might possibly consider it to be a gangster/robbery film. The narrative concerns an ex-crook, Dove (Ray Winstone), who, with his wife, Deedee (Amanda Redman), an ex-porno queen, leaves behind the rat race of crime and sleaze in Britain and retires to a newly built villa and pool on Spain's Costa del Sol. Gal and Deedee live a kind of Yellow Submarine fantasy retirement, baking in the warm, yellow sun of the Mediterranean. Their good friends from home, Aitch (Cavan Kendall) and Jackie (Julianne White), live almost next door. Into this idyllic existence comes a former partner in crime, Don Logan, bent on persuading the reluctant Gal to return to England for one last caper. Attempting to overcome Gal's reluctance to participate in the robbery, Logan attacks with threats and psychological abuse, creating a critical mass in the four characters' minds- which, when it explodes, leads them to kill him. The dramatic crux of the narrative concerns Gal's reaction to the killing and what causes him to change his mind about the robbery. The resulting bank heist and Gal's subsequent return to Spain close the narrative. While such a narrative line might seem to exist within the domain of the traditional gangster film, other aspects of the narrative resist such a generic identification. It is certainly not a gangster or a heist film in either the 1930s Hollywood tradition, the French tradition of the policier, or the British gangster film. First of all, it is not a cops and robbers narrative; the police are not the antagonists. Neither is it thematically about men working together. Pushed to the side in the narrative are the details of assembling the heist team. Little attention is paid to showing each team member's special skills and distinctive temperament. In eventually opting to participate in the robbery, Gal does not yield to traditional appeals of greed, professional challenge, or desire for camaraderie. The robbery is also not the suspenseful climax of the film. Aside from Gal's maintaining his freedom and acquiring the ruby earrings- which are discussed later- nothing of significance is won or lost in the robbery. It is business as usual for the robbers; Gal, too, just goes through the motions of robbing the bank. In fact, the robbery serves mainly to reiterate certain themes and symbolic motifs originally stated in the first half of the narrative, giving them a development and ironic shift by their recapitulation. Thus, something else is at stake in this film, something having to do with the psychological drama of Gal's decision, or capitulation, to participate in the robbery and that drama's reverberation throughout the film's mise-en-scene in a monstrous way. Andrew Tudor claims that such a focus on a character's inner drama- a conflict that has a monstrous dimension- is a prominent feature of British horror films from 1960 on. …