Gothic (1986) on Netflix
At Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva, Lord Byron hosts Percy and Mary Shelley, Claire Clairmont and Dr. John Polidori. Ghost stories and a séance push the guests to write horror tales.
- Netflix2.8/5
- IMDb5.7/1010,119 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes60%
Trailer
Plot summary
In the summer of 1816, Claire Clairmont, Lord Byron's lover, brings her stepsister Mary Godwin and Percy Shelley to meet him, and he invites them to stay at his Villa Diodati in Switzerland. There they meet Byron's physician, Dr. John Polidori. On a stormy June evening the five play hide-and-seek, then talk of science, sleepwalking and nightmares. Byron shows them Phantasmagoria, a collection of horror tales from a Geneva shop, and the guests read from it aloud. The reading prompts a séance around a human skull, during which Claire falls into an apparent seizure, which Mary calls one of her horrors. Polidori carries her upstairs to rest.
Cast
- Pascal Kingas Justine
- Linda Cogginas Turkish Mechanical Woman
- Kristine Landon-Smithas Mechanical Woman
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Gothic (1986)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The poster had a naughty-looking goblin perching on the chest of Natasha Richardson, and Virgin Films were told it was not acceptable, so they airbrushed the goblin out, even though the image was a pretty exact pastiche of a well-known Fuseli painting hanging in the Tate.
- According to Dan Ireland, the film was a financial success on video, and Vestron, which distributed it in that format, signed Russell to a three-picture contract that ensured him financing for the rest of the decade. Russell said the film gave his career a "second wind".
- Natasha Richardson found the shoot difficult, saying she was "sort of shattered by the end" and that it became hard to turn off and turn on: "We'd get to the umpteenth take, and I just couldn't stop crying between takes."
- Russell had been interested in Byron and Shelley's meeting for a decade. About ten years earlier the actor Robert Powell had brought him a script covering the same span of events, but they could not raise the money, and Russell thought it a little too poetic and not as scary as it might have been.
