IMDb RATING
5.7/10
8.9K
YOUR RATING
The Shelleys visit Lord Byron and compete to write a horror story.The Shelleys visit Lord Byron and compete to write a horror story.The Shelleys visit Lord Byron and compete to write a horror story.
- Awards
- 2 wins & 2 nominations
Chris Chappell
- Man in Armour
- (as Chris Chappel)
Cosey Fanni Tutti
- Shelley Fan
- (as Christine Newby)
Kim Tillesly
- Shelley Fan
- (as Kim Tillesley)
Ken Russell
- Tourist
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writers
- Stephen Volk
- Lord Byron(uncredited)
- Percy Bysshe Shelley(uncredited)
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe painting that Mary Shelley sees on the wall, and that subsequently comes to life in her dream, is Henry Fuseli's "Nightmare."
- GoofsClaire Clairmont (Myriam Cyr) falls out of the rowboat in the opening scene, but just a few seconds later, as she's running with Percy toward the house, her clothes and hair are totally dry.
- Quotes
[first lines]
Tour Guide: And there, ladies and gentlemen, on the other side of the lake we have the famous Villa Diodati where Lord Byron, greatest living English poet, resides in exile. Romantic, scholar, duelist, best-selling author of Childe Harold, he was forced to leave his native land after many scandals including incest and adultery with Lady Caroline Lamb. "Mad, bad and dangerous to know" she called him.
[the guide squeezes a lady's hand and points]
Tour Guide: Bedroom - top right.
- Alternate versionsAmerican versions contain a title-card before the credits. This title card contains Mary Shelley's quote from the foreword to Frankenstein where she discusses the night the movie centers around. A brief explanation is then provided mentioning that both Frankenstein and Dracula were born on that night.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Siskel & Ebert: Project X/Wild Thing/Heaven/Gothic (1987)
Featured review
One of the best works of Director Ken Russell
Films like Gothic, directed by Ken Russell, will not be to most people's taste. Russell is noted for a skewed view of life with very twisted imagery, such as his invariable trademark snake that slithers around in all his films. In this particular film he has devised a story that touches on reality in an unreal way as he brings the famous night that Percy Shelly, Mary Shelly, he half-sister Claire, Lord Byron and Dr. John Polidori spent together that brought about two of the great horror stories of all time about as a result. Between debauchery and Opium laced nightmares this could have been very much what it was really like as this quintet of famous or rather infamous people got together and brought the birth of a new kind of literature, years before Edgar Allen Poe began his writing. Polidori's "The Vampyre" which for many years was attributed to Byron was the forerunner and inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula. Of course, Mary Shelly was to go on and write "Frankenstein." This is how it could have happened.
This feature is intense and not for everyone. Definitely not for young people. But a true intellectual's horror tale.
This feature is intense and not for everyone. Definitely not for young people. But a true intellectual's horror tale.
helpful•247
- ozthegreatat42330
- Apr 22, 2007
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Details
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $916,172
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $32,061
- Apr 12, 1987
- Gross worldwide
- $916,172
- Runtime1 hour 27 minutes
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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