Movies
Gothic
On a long and restless night in 1816 at Lord Byron's Swiss villa, both Dr. Polidori's Vampyre and Mrs. Shelley's Frankenstein were "born." And Ken Russell is there, with hacksaw and tongs, to serve as midwife. It's a bit like a music-video version of a horror film: it has a lot of the iconography, but little of the feeling -- and less of the sense. The dominant image in mere frequency is of someone running about in a nightdress, in front of a wide-angle lens. The dominant image in repugnancy is more open to debate. The mud-smeared woman with a rat in her mouth? The woman vomiting at the sight of the mud-smeared woman with a rat in her mouth? The platter of leeches? The mouthful of roaches? The breasts with eyeballs where the nipples ought to be? Pick your poison. With Gabriel Byrne, Julian Sands, Natasha Richardson. 1987.
Reader Rating:
MPAA Rating: R
