Rainey Dawn Well, I don't believe anyone can actually say what happened the night Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein - and I DON'T believe it's what happened in this bizarre film. Looking at through the eyes of "it's just Hollywood cinema" it's an entertaining horror film.Drugs and alcohol?... well I'm not sure that is what spawned Mary Shelley's book. I tend to think the fact she knew people in 'high places' and overheard some amazing conversation about the future of medical science is what spawned her imagination and the book Frankenstein. Intellectual conversations are the likely reason for the book.Over all, this is good, fun horror film, even though I highly doubt it's accuracy. It is quite possible that drugs and alcohol did play a small role but I can't say for sure but I can say it made for an entertaining horror film.8/10

webmouse3 Gothic is the earlier of the two films on the subject of the 1816 meeting of Shelley, Byron, Polidori and the half-sisters Mary and Claire. Gothic simply seems to lose all its substance underneath overly exaggerated style. I found no reason to like nor to care about the characters, even though the cast is certainly an illustrious and capable one.Haunted Summer gives a much more nuanced look at the lives, loves, and tragedies of these pivotal persons. Gothic has far too much running about in madcap antics with very little focus on what actually drove these people to become who they were -- or to end the way they did. I only own this DVD to use as comparative filmography. As such it is a fine example of how even the most competent actors can not save a film.

Andy McGregor Historical accuracy moves over to make room for dramatic license in this extremely bizarre "re-imagining" of the weekend Mary Shelley first brought "Frankenstein" to life (as it were!). Although, to be fair, there isn't too much about the novel at all.Byron (Gabriel Byrne) invites Mary, her then future husband Percy (Julian Sands) and her cousin Claire to spend the weekend with himself and another friend of his, Dr Pollidore (who also went on to write a Gothic horror) at his estate in Geneva. After much drug-fuelled recourse, dodgy parlour games and sexually liberated liaisons it becomes apparent that the ever omni-sexual Byron has questionable motives and is basically trying to fire-in to all the guests! This brings about an adequate amount of paranoia,jealousy and arguing amongst everyone which inevitably turns into soul-seeking, psychotic breakdowns and eventual emotional ennui. Presumably it is in this state Shelley went on to put pen to paper.The cast are solid in their roles and Byrne is thoroughly convincing as the foppish predator. Russell delivers this movie with complete frankness and is somewhat mercenary in his reshaping of the facts to suit his own ends. Never one to shirk from the difficult often shocking subjects, he manages to turn an otherwise average script into a sexually charged hallucinogenic nightmare. While not exactly deserving of the "horror" label it has been tagged with, "Gothic" is an interesting foray into the dark abyss of the director's mind.

Michael_Elliott Gothic (1986)** (out of 4)Interesting take on how Frankenstein came to be from cult director Russell. The bizarre Byron (Gabriel Byrne) invites friends Shelley (Julian Sands) and his wife Mary (Natasha Richardson) over for what will turn out to be a strange night with one nightmare after another. This British production draws people in as it promises to show how Mary Shelley created her famous story but this here pretty much never happens. I knew enough about the film going in to know not to expect any type of biography or true-story take on the actual events. With that said, this movie is a pretty confusing mess from start to finish and I'm still not quite sure what it was trying to do. Heck, I'm really not sure if Russell knew exactly what they were doing except for trying to create something very bizarre. If the entire plan was to do that then they've pretty much succeeded as this is certainly a very strange movie. The final thirty-minutes goes off-the-wall in terms of weirdness. This is when all the characters really go overboard with one strange fantasy after another, which includes a strange creature living in the castle's basement, dead babies, weird orgies and this here isn't even half of it. We even get a very memorable scene where a woman's nipples are actually her eyes. It's these strange moments that make this film worth viewing but I think most people are going to hit the eject button during the first hour. The first hour is pretty hard to sit through as we basically get our characters going into one long speech after another and when they're not talking they're just screaming at the top of their lungs. The film pretty much left me bored for the first hour and when I wasn't bored I was trying to backtrack to try and make sense of what was going on. There's no doubt Russell has a certain style that he brings to the film and it's atmosphere is right on the mark but you still have to have some sort of plot. Byrne, Sands and Richardson are all fine in their roles.