GOTHIC Review On "Violent Maniac's Cage"

GOTHIC

Weird. Weirdness. Oddness. Craziness. Nutiness. GOTHIC is an insane movie. Based loosely on the evening in which Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley, Lord Byron and others got together to swap poetry and stories...resulting in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, GOTHIC is like nothing you've ever seen before. Good? Well, maybe. Bad? Not really. Enjoyable? Not really.

O.K., what loosely could be called a plot is as follows. Mary and Percy Shelley come to Lord Byron's house with their female friend. Byron also has a weird doctor friend hanging around. They come and immediately their dialogue is basically poetry. Lots and lots of poetry. Fine, it's a literate horror movie. We're all educated, right? Right. Anyways, they spend a good deal of time chasing each other around the house and playing tricks on one another.

Then, evening comes. The four (the doctor hangs around but basically does nothing) sit in a circle and tell each other ghost stories which shock and frighten them. They decide that together they can create an effective ghost story...in essence: give birth to a monster (get it? Frankenstein). So, they do, kind of. Actually, I'm not quite sure what happens, it's really weird.

What follows is nuts: The doctor starts smacking his hand against a nail, the female friend of the Shelleys' is naked covered in mud, and there's something at the window, but we're not quite sure what. The focal point of the story is Mary, whose a pretty cool heroine. She envisions all these weird things...like the creature from the famous "Gothic" painting coming to life (actually, a very effective and creepy scene).

The problem with GOTHIC, directed by cult favorite Ken Russel, is that it is virtually impossible to distinguish what is happening at all! The cast, including well-kown actors Gabriel Byrne and Julian Sands, have fun with the stuff, but that's because they get to rant and rave weirdness. It's not all bad at all...there are a couple truly creepy scenes and there are some haunting images and lines, but in general, it doesn't deliver much bang for its buck, and that's a problem (not to mention its weak ending). I would say that GOTHIC is an interesting film to analyze and deconstruct, but I sincerely doubt that's what you're looking for from a horror rental.

Rating: ** (out of a possible 4)

Review by: Dan Sachar

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