Gothic (1987)

Ken Russell's film of Stephen Volk's screenplay about the night that inspired Mary Shelley to write Frankenstein (and John Polidori to write The Vampyre but you don't need to worry about that) gets a Blu-ray release from the BFI.

Percy Shelley (Julian Sands) and his new wife Mary (Natasha Richardson) arrive at the Villa Deodati on the shore of Lake Geneva. It's currently being rented by Lord Byron (Gabriel Byrne) whose doctor and close personal peculiar friend John Polidori (Timothy Spall) is also present, as well as Clare Clairmont (Myriam Cyr), Mary's stepsister. After dinner, as a storm rages, the five of them hold a seance, the sequel to which is a night filled with madness and strange visions.

Sandwiched in Ken Russell's feature career by CRIMES OF PASSION (1984) and his deal with Vestron which yielded LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM, SALOME'S LAST DANCE (both 1988) and THE RAINBOW (1989), GOTHIC certainly lives up to its name, with as much blood and thunder and 'dark stormy nighting' as its director could wring out of the story. There are a number of arresting visuals, the location is lovely, and the performances are what one might expect from Mr Russell's encouragement. While it's not as gleefully outrageous as CRIMES OF PASSION or as all-round entertaining as LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM, GOTHIC remains a fine example of the UK's enfant terrible doing what he always did best.

Extras on the BFI's disc kick off with a lovely 34 minute interview with Stephen Volk, who talks about the genesis of the project, where he was in his life at the time of writing it, and what it was like to work with Russell. Soul of Shelley is a ported over interview with the late Julian Sands from 2017. Also ported over is the commentary track from Lisi Russell and Matthew Melia. Another audio track is given over to The Guardian Lecture with Ken Russell from 1987 which runs the length of the film and includes audience questions and Russell's entertaining ripostes to them.

Also included are some other Russell works: Amelia and the Angel is a 27 minute black and white short from 1957 about a little girl playing the angel in the school play. THE FALL OF THE LOUSE OF USHER (2002) is Russell's final feature, shot on video and funded by remortgaging his house, at least as far as I can remember from the edition of Melvyn Bragg's The South Bank Show that was dedicated to it back in the day. It's a shame they couldn't have included that as well. USHER is very typical Ken but with the very rough around the edges feel of Jess Franco's later filmed on video efforts. Hardened Ken fans will love it, or at least find it fascinating, but it's not the film to show to someone you want to convert to the cause. Finally, the disc also comes with a booklet featuring new essays and notes on the special features.

Ken Russell's GOTHIC is out on Blu-ray from the BFI on Monday 18th September 2023