Gothic(1987)

Plot Summary

• Through her half-sister Claire Clairmont [Miriam Cyr], Mary Godwin [Natasha Richardson] and her future husband Percy Shelley [Julian Sands] came to know Lord Byron [Gabriel Byrne]. During the summer of 1816, Lord Byron invited them to stay for a while at his Villa Diodati in Switzerland. There they met Byron's physician friend Dr John Polidori [Timothy Spall]. On June 16th, while a storm raged outside, the five of them amused themselves by telling ghost stories and revealing private skeletons. From Mary's previous experience of miscarriage came the desire to raise her child from the dead which led to the creation of the Frankenstein monster. From Polidori's homosexuality, suicidal thoughts, and fascination with vampires came the story "The Vampyre".

Storyline

• The story of the night Mary Shelley gave birth to the horror classic FRANKENSTEIN: Disturbed, drug-induced games are played and ghost stories are told one rainy night at the mad Lord Byron's country estate. Personal horrors are revealed, and the madness of the evening runs from sexual fantasy to the fiercest nightmare. Mary finds herself drawn into the sick world of her lover Shelley and stepsister Claire as Byron leads them all down the dark paths of their souls. — Susan Southall <stobchatay@aol.com> Living in an estate on the shores of Lake Geneva, Lord Byron is visited by Percy and Mary Godwin Shelley. Together with Byron's lover Claire Clairmont, and aided by hallucinogenic substances, they devise an evening of ghoulish tales. However, when confronted by horrors, ostensibly of their own creation, telling apparition from reality becomes difficult to tell apparition from reality. — grantss