Find a copy of "Gothic" on DVD
Directed by cult favourite and "enfant terrible" Ken Russell, "Gothic" delves into the erotic and terrifying night in 1816 that ultimately gave birth to Mary Shelley's classic horror novel "Frankenstein" and Polidori's "The Vampire".
While a wild storm rages in the sky over poet Lord Byron's literary house party on the shores of Lake Geneva, the exiled English poet suggests everyone invent a ghost story. As the dead of night closes in, he and his guests go on to hold a séance to conjure up their deepest, most secret fears. But is it their intense lusts and vivid imaginations at work, or have they truly created a monster?
"Five go mad on laudanum" Sunday Times
"A Visual Feast" Sunday Telegraph
"Surely it is time Russell stopped producing this sick rubbish..." Letter to The People, March 1987
"A complex psychosexual drama about the act of creating art" James Payne, Garageland
"(A) seminal Russellian film which deal(s) with belief, sex and identity" Dangerous Minds
"Nail down the swiss rolls!" (Ken Russell's instruction to the crew whilst filming an exterior scene in a high wind)
"As ghoulishly funny and frenzied as a carnival ride through The Marquis de Sade's Tunnel of Love" Vincent Canby, New York Times
That New York Times review in full
"You will cleave to this tortured bit of cinematic epilepsy because it is ALIVE... I came away from Gothic with my soul on fire... (...) because it is dangerously conceived, impudently mounted, uncaring of its footing, determined to crawl the wall or tumble into the abyss, all in the name of disgorging the absurd demon in thought." Harlan Ellison in Harlan Ellison's Watching
Read an extract from Harlan Ellison on "Gothic"
Read the review on British Horror Films.
Buy the soundtrack by Thomas Dolby
Watch this excellent edit to new music "Like Hell: A Gothic Nightmare" by Corvo
Watch this YouTube edit to "Somebody's Watching Me"
Director: Ken Russell
Producer: Penny Corke
Director of Photography: Mike Southon
Executive Producers: Al Clark and Robert Devereux
Virgin Films (1986, UK)
Byron.....................Gabriel Byrne
Mary.......................Natasha Richardson
Shelley....................Julian Sands
Claire......................Myriam Cyr
Polidori....................Timothy Spall
Go to FrankensteinFilms.com to dowload the the text and/or synopsis of Mary Shelley's original novel "Frankenstein" and to read the essay on "Origin of a Monster: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein"
Click here to explore more about Frankenstein in culture and media on Frankensteinia: The Frankenstein Blog.
Look for more films directed by Ken Russell
Watch the ten-minute mini-documentary On Ken Russell by Matthew Supersad and Arran Corbett
Read an interview with Ken Russell "The Last Fires of Film's Old Devil" (from The Guardian 29 April 2011) on the occasion of an upcoming screening of his uncensored version of his "masterpiece" The Devils.
Read Ken Russell Dies aged 84 in the Huffington Post (28 November 2011). Also take a look at his life in photographs, here.
Read The Life of Ken Russell, a Unique British Talent in the Daily Telegraph (28 November 2011).
Watch the video tribute by critic and friend Mark Kermode: "Kermode Uncut: Our Ken"
Read Ken Russell, Director Fond of Provocation, Dies at 84 in the New York Times (28 November 2011).
Read Legendary Film Director Ken Russell has Died on Dangerous Minds (including film clips of The Music Lovers, The Devils, Tommy and Valentino) (November 2011).
Read Leslie Felperin of Variety on the death of Ken Russell: Brit cinema's enfant terrible distinguished by raw, passionate filmmaking. "There was still energy, flair and a very English eccentricity to be admired in those (of his films) that were critically reviled at the time, like Gothic" (Dec 2011)