Gothic (1989 – BFI)

Director: Ken Russell
Screenplay: Stephen Volk
Starring: Gabriel Byrne, Julian Sands, Natasha Richardson, Myriam Cyr, Timothy Spall
Country: United Kingdom
Running Time: 87 min
Year: 1986

1816, Geneva, Switzerland – a year and location significant within the genres of horror and science fiction. It was during the summer of 1816 that Mary Shelley, while staying with her stepsister and husband Percy at the home of Lord Byron, famously conceived the idea of her novel, Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus. The tale of this fateful trip has been dramatised a number of times, but Ken Russell’s Gothic takes a stab at turning a vacation into a psychedelic, psychological gothic horror story.

The film begins with Percy (the late Julian Sands), Mary (Natasha Richardson) and her stepsister Claire (Myriam Cyr) arriving at Byron’s (Gabriel Byrne) house by boat in a raging thunderstorm. There they are joined by Dr John Polidori (Timothy Spall), consume large amounts of food and liquid opium and proceed to challenge each other to come up with tales of terror. What ensues is very much a character focussed tale of drug addled debauchery.

Gothic is a tricky film to watch. The obvious hook here is that it’s a story about the birth of two horror classics, Shelley’s Frankenstein and Polidori’s The Vampyr, and the themes of death and rebirth are frequently alluded to throughout the script; however the main thrust of the narrative revolves around a seance conducted under the influence of opium and the idea that the revellers may have conjured something dark from the depths of hell. Their sanity is frequently questioned throughout, as is the intention of Lord Byron, played with slinkingly devious sensuality by Byrne, towards Claire who suggests that she is pregnant with his child from a previous tryst. Indeed, the toxic masculinity and abusive tendencies that Byrne frequently puts into his portrayal feel remarkably prescient today.

This narrative, though, is so thin that only the histrionics bubble to the surface during the majority of Gothic’s short run time. Sands plays Shelley as a hysterical luvvie, screaming to the stars of the evils committed by man, while Myriam Cyr and Timothy Spall chew scenery in their respectively unhinged roles as Claire and Polidori. It’s only Natasha Richardson as Mary, arguably the lead character, who grounds the performances. Both grounded and wonderfully paranoid as her night descends into visions of beastly men and incubi, culminating in one of the most visually superb parts of the film, Richardson is a treat to watch every time she’s on screen.

And yes, the film is indeed visually sumptuous. Surreal yet playful with a brooding atmosphere and some genuinely chilling moments, the lurid colour palette is particularly brought to the surface in this BFI release. Gothic really feels like a mid-point between Russell’s wonderfully surrealist and lurid Christsploitation epic, The Devils, and his later, more garishly surreal, blackly comic folk horror Lair of the White Worm, yet never really manages to reach the heights of either of those productions thanks to its remarkably slight plot. Gothic is by no means a terrible film, but it ultimately proves to be quite middling despite its good looks and is hard to recommend to anyone other than the curious.

Bonus features

• Feature commentary by film historian Matthew Melia and Lisi Russell (2018)
• The Fall of the Louse of Usher (2002, 83 mins): Ken Russell returns to gothic themes in this legendarily lurid late video work starring both the director and his wife, Lisi Russell
• A Haunted Evening (2023, 35 mins): Stephen Volk, the writer of Gothic, revisits his earliest feature script
• The Sound of Shelley with Julian Sands (2017, 18 mins): the actor reflects upon the making of Gothic
• Amelia and the Angel (1958, 27 mins): in this charming early Russell short, a young girl, cast as an angel in the school play, is distraught when her brother damages her treasured wings. Pocket money in hand, Amelia traverses London on the hunt for a new pair in time for the play
• The Guardian Lecture: Ken Russell in conversation with Derek Malcolm (1987, 88 mins, audio only): the director reflects upon his career, at the time of Gothic
• Original trailer
• **FIRST PRESSING ONLY** Illustrated booklet featuring new essays by Ellen Cheshire, Jon Dear, and Matthew Melia and full film credits
• First pressing limited to 3,000 copies

This BFI release of Gothic dips into a variety of bonus features, both new and old, with some excellent retrospective pieces from writer Stephen Volk and actor Julian Sands, as well as a lengthy recording of a 1987 interview/lecture with Russell. More interesting but ultimately disappointing is the inclusion of another feature film on the disc, 2002’s The Fall of the Louse of Usher, a loose adaptation of Edgar Alan Poe’s short story The Fall of the House of Usher.

One of Russell’s last features, this self produced vanity project was shot on video, and is full of overacting and lurid imagery made on the lowest of budgets, complete with crew visible in shots. It’s a weird film with an initially compelling punk rock aesthetic, featuring Russell himself in a starring role as a mad German scientist. Ultimately though this is far from vintage Russell and is not an easy watch.

Much more appealing, however, is Russells short film Amelia and the Angel, a lovely little piece about a little girl trying to replace her broken angel wings. It’s a gorgeous looking black and white short with some brilliantly composed shots from the 30 year old director and is fantastic to see on this set as a look into the formative years of one of the UK’s more divisive filmmakers.