Well I am reading Beowulf for maybe the third or fourth time. For school, mostly. It is the majority of what poetry that remains from the Anglo Saxon period. Some scholars think that it started out as a pagan tale and then when the English people converted the text was converted to be a more christionlike. That may be true or it may be the whole thing was written by some christion scribe looking at the old days. I don't know, nor do I particularily care. Because face it, it's just a good yarn, in an Anglo Saxon violent way of course.  How many stories do we read now that have the main hero ripping off the villians arm?
         I have not watched any of the movies which I hear are awful, and from what I hear of the movies I have to think that I would agree with them. I don't think that we would be able to make a good movie based on it. Firstly it is a poem, hello, unless you want people speaking in verse, most likely it should be left alone. Second we like to psychoanaylize people from back than. Well that is just a sure way to ruin the movie. Beowulf is not a complicated character. He's an ideal Saxon leader, with incredible strength and courage, and perhaps not so much strength in his head.
            I have not even touched on the Grendel's Damn (a damn is the mother of a certain animal). In the movie, I hear she is an unclad woman in high heels. Umm... What makes you think she is even a human? I mean her son steals thirty or so men and eats them (Humans may be able to be cannabalistic but even canibals have a limit to how much they can eat). I got more of the impression that she was a humanesque beast. She does live underwater and hoards treasures there. Besides they did not even have high heels than and certainly not ones that you can swim in. As far as the rest goes... it just sounds  unAnglo Saxon. But I've never watched it so I don't know for sure.