Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.0

Gothic Blu-ray Movie Review

The men and women who made a monster.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 17, 2018

The Bride of Frankenstein famously begins with a vignette documenting a “dark and stormy night” (to quote Bulwer Lytton) at the mansion of one Lord Byron, where a number of other leading lights of the Romantic Era like Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley have assembled to share what amounts to “campfire” ghost stories, leading to the main tale at the center of this supposed sequel. While this “dramatization” (which is of course slyly comic from the get go) suggests that Mary Shelley had already written Frankenstein and was simply continuing the monster’s saga for the delight and fear factor of her audience, there actually was a historical incident upon which this vignette was based, where Lord Byron, the Shelleys (who were actually not yet married), Mary’s stepsister Claire Clairmont (who was romantically involved with Byron), and Byron’s personal physician Dr. John William Polidori had assembled at Byron’s magnificent Villa Diodati near Lake Geneva in Switzerland. It was the summer of 1816, a supposedly temperate time of the year which in fact was wracked with fairly violent storms. The revelers were therefore forced to stay inside, where they did indeed delight each other with scary stories, something that has long been rumored to have given life to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and a somewhat lesser known horror opus, Polidori’s The Vampyre, a story which is now credited as being the first published work in English about such a creature, and one which preceded Bram Stoker’s better remembered Dracula by decades. Ken Russell, a director who was almost genetically programmed not to leave well enough alone, took the fundamental aspects of those epochal historical facts and processed them through his typically hyperbolic sensibilities to create Gothic, one of his more gonzo offerings (which, if you know Russell’s oeuvre, is saying quite a bit). The film is tonally all over the place, and it features a rather staggering array of performance styles, but as with most Russell outings, it’s visually quite alluring, and its slapdash approach toward these iconic characters may appeal to those who like their “history” spiced up with a bit of salacious content.

Gothic begins with a kind of curious voyeuristic aspect involving tourists trying to spy on Lord Byron, which perhaps subliminally suggests that the film’s viewers are themselves peeking in at “hidden” events. The film quickly (perhaps too quickly) introduces its focal characters, which include Byron (Gabriel Byrne), Percy Bysshe Shelley (Julian Sands), Mary Godwin (Natasha Richardson in her feature film debut), Claire Clairmont (Myriam Cyr) and John Polidori (Timothy Spall), all of whom will gather inside Villa Diodati as a storm rages outside. The kind of odd thing about Stephen Volk’s screenplay is that it seems to want to get into some kind of roiling psychological, or even psycho-sexual, issues, but, kind of similarly to Russell’s directorial style, it has a certain ADHD quality that tends to introduce ideas only to jettison them rather quickly for some new “shiny object”. Therefore, a kind of bristling if inherently uncomfortable sadomasochistic aspect that is hinted at in terms of the relationship between Byron and Claire is never fully developed, although little vignettes (as when Claire accuses Byron of being the devil with a “cloven hoof”, due to his supposed club foot, something that leads to a really uncomfortable showdown) still offer slight, if ephemeral, chills.

Gothic seems to want to ply a kind of psychological thriller territory where this odd quintet, probably under the influence of various opiates, indulges in a seance and then unlocks either a real terror or imagined threats from their individual Ids. As such, the film has a lot of panicked running through halls and up and down staircases, but actual scares are few and far between (and some might argue actually non existent). Instead, in typical Russellian fashion, the film keeps darting off into tangents, often with a fairly prurient subtext in tow. Volk’s screenplay has a lot of interesting information in it, but it’s wildly overamped most of the time, leading to an almost unavoidable feeling of chaos and (at least for some) camp.

With a screenplay emphasizing the more eccentric proclivities of at least four of the five main characters (Mary seems positively reserved, aside from her aforementioned panicked running), and Russell’s directorial flair, which itself emphasizes askew framings and bizarre performance touches, Gothic is never less than fascinating, but some may feel like it’s the kind of fascination one feels when observing a train wreck. I’ve always had something of a soft spot for Russell, especially with some of his composer “biographies”, but even I find Gothic a rather curious formulation. It’s fun and occasionally even exciting, but, like all those people madly scrambling about a potentially haunted castle, it rarely gets to anywhere meaningful.

Gothic Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Gothic is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Film's Vestron Video imprint with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. I have to say to my eyes this is one of the nicer and more consistent offerings we've seen from the Vestron Video collection, one that has a nicely suffused palette almost all of the time and which offers generally very good to excellent detail levels. There are a few niggling issues along the way, including some easily perceptible wobble during the credits (where some might want to also keep their eyes peeled toward the bottom left of the frame, where a few errant white specks show up). Later in some kind of misty (if interior) scenes, there are slight compression issues where the otherwise organic looking grain field tends to clump just a little. A few isolated scenes are a bit rougher and less clear than the bulk of the presentation, but my sense is these issues are source related, not a fault of the encode.

Gothic Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Gothic features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix which provides ample support for the film's dialogue and its somewhat anachronistic score by Thomas Dolby. Dolby's music was actually one of the film's calling cards at the time of its original release, but I have to say I've always thought it kind of draws attention to itself rather than subliminally supporting the scenes it's featured in. (There are a ton of Dolby fans I'm sure would vehemently disagree with me.) Fidelity is fine throughout the presentation, and there are no problems of any kind to report.

Gothic Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Lili Russell, in conversation with film historian Matthew Melia. This is an often interesting reminiscence from Russell, though she kind of oddly states that Scream was an inspiration for this film, which I guess means Kevin Williamson knows how to time travel. Melia can be a little hesitant at times, but overall this a very engaging commentary track.


• Isolated Score Selections and Audio Interview with Composer Thomas Dolby is another interesting piece for film score aficionados. The score is presented in the perhaps appropriate but still lossy Dolby Digital 2.0. Michael Felsher of Red Shirt Productions conducts the interview.


• The Soul of Shelley with Actor Julian Sands (1080p; 17:53) is a fun interview with Sands, who talks about some of Russell's eccentricities.


• Fear Itself with Screenwriter Stephen Volk (1080p; 17:26) is another interesting interview, with Volk talking about things like the genesis of this story.


• One Rainy Night with Director of Photography Mike Southon (1080p; 23:09) is quite informative as well, with Southon talking about what was his sophomore effort as a cinematographer.


• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 2:17)


• Still Gallery (1080p; 4:08)


• TV Spot (1080i; 00:34)

Gothic Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

One of my all time favorite Peanuts cartoons featured Snoopy attempting to write a novel, which he began with Bulwer-Lytton's infamous, "It was a dark and stormy night." Resident critic (ahem) Lucy walks in and berates Snoopy for his stupidity, pointing out that a book needs to start with an instantly alluring character. Snoopy thinks for a moment and then types, "He was a dark and stormy knight." There actually is a knight in Gothic, lest you were wondering, along with everything else (including a kitchen sink, I imagine), and like a lot of Russell films, there's kind of an enjoyable delirium that accrues simply due to all the excesses on display. But Gothic doesn't seem to know what it wants to be, and as such it's kind of an odd entry in Russell's already pretty outré filmography. Technical merits are generally strong and the supplementary package enjoyable for those considering a purchase.