Gothic *** (1986, Gabriel Byrne, Julian Sands, Natasha Richardson, Timothy Spall) – Classic Movie Review 2031

Ken Russell’s eye-catching 1986 movie Gothic stars Gabriel Byrne as the mad Lord Byron, Julian Sands as the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and Natasha Richardson as Mary Shelley.

As time went by, director Ken Russell seemed to get ever more fervid, extravagant and just plain desperate and demented, but this is a good, ideal subject for him to tackle in 1986. His stunningly eye-catching but absurdly over-heated movie Gothic focuses on the famous rainy night of June 16 in 1816 when the mad Lord Byron (Gabriel Byrne), Percy Bysshe Shelley (Julian Sands), Mary Shelley (Natasha Richardson), her half-sister Claire Clairmont (Miriam Cyr) and Dr John Polidori (Timothy Spall) thought up and told ghost stories in Byron’s Swiss villa on his country estate. It is, of course, the night that Mary Shelley gave birth to the horror classic Frankenstein.

Personal horrors are revealed as drug-induced games are played in a night that runs the gamut from sexual fantasy to nightmares as Mary is drawn into the sick world of her lover and husband-to-be Shelley and the quintet start to believe that they have actually created a monster.

Russell’s messy movie is all weird, arty and excess, and not necessarily in a good way, with enough elements to alienate many viewers , as it climaxes in an orgy of sex and violence. But Gothic also has a full rush of Russell’s imaginative visual style and his nightmarish obsessions, plus involving performances from the exceptional cast of notable players, and it exerts a horrible lurid fascination, just like a classic horror movie is supposed to do.

The director’s unflagging brio is capped by properly exotic turns from Byrne as a stylish Byron, Sands as the poet Shelley and Richardson in her feature film star debut as Mary Shelley, and eye-catching performances from the others. It co-stars Alec Mango, Andreas Wisniewski, Dexter Fletcher, Pascal King, Tom Hickey and Linda Coggin. 

There may be too much rushing around and too little thought in a film with more style than substance. But Russell and his screenwriter Stephen Volk have still achieved a movie that is a lot more fascinating and successful than, for example, the Roger Corman version of the story, Frankenstein Unbound (1990), or Kenneth Branagh’s Frankenstein (1994).

Natasha Richardson died on March 18 2009, aged 45, after falling and receiving a head injury while skiing in Mont Tremblant, Quebec.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2031

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