Limehouse Blues

I'll start out by spoiling it: there is no metaphysical golem in The Limehouse Golem (2016). It is not actually horror, per se, more of a serial killer story. That isn't what we were looking for. But it did have a lot of Bill Nighy, and that counts for a lot.

Nighy is a police detective, moved out of London to the sticks because he was suspected of homosexual tendencies. But they've brought him back to solve the case of the Limehouse Golem, a serial killer in the dockside, lowlife Limehouse district. He leaves notes, calling himself the Golem. But Nighy is more interested in another case: Olivia Cooke is accused of killing her husband, Sam Reid. She is a music hall darling, he was an aspiring playwright. So in between the investigation, we get to hear about her appalling upbringing, sewing sails and being sexually abused, until she got to do a turn in the music hall, and caught on. 

As far as the investigation goes, Nighy finds a clue pointing to de Quincy's (famous opium eater and degenerate) essay on the fine art of murder. He goes to the British Museum Reading Room, and finds that their copy of the essay has been scribbled in with a demonic diary of the murders - the murderer was in this very room. The records show that only four people had access to the book at the proper time: Reid, music hall cross-dressing legend Dan Leno, novelist George Gissing, and Karl Marx. Nighy tries to get handwriting specimens from each. The scene with Marx is pretty funny - Nighy doesn't really suspect him.

As Cooke is about to be hanged, he begins to suspect that Reid was the golem, and that Cooke killing him was justice. If he could just find a writing sample to prove it. Or perhaps there is another solution...

You may or may not get the twist. What matters is how we get there. We get quite a bit of music hall, including Dan Leno (a real historical person, played by Douglas Booth, often in a dress), some rotten homophobia, and a lot of sexual abuse of the poor. The music hall touches are a touch surreal, framing the movie as if it were part of a sketch. There's even a hint of mysticism at the end. 

So, while not supernatural in the most part, it was very well done. Just wish we had gotten a real golem.