Gothic (1987)

***Looks great, sounds good, but a load of dull, pretentious, perverse dreck***

The writer of Frankenstein (Natasha Richardson), her beau (Julian Sands) and half-sister (Myriam Cyr) visit the mad, bad recluse Lord Byron (Gabriel Byrne) at his lavish estate on Lake Geneva in Switzerland. There they meet Byron’s equally bizarre physician friend (Timothy Spall) and spend the stormy night of June 16, 1816, in hallucinatory revelry, including a challenge to write a spooky story, which gave birth to Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” and John William Polidori’s “The Vampyre,” the first published modern vampire story.

The premise of “Gothic” (1986) is great, the first act is interesting and the short epilogue is effective. Unfortunately, the hour in between is meandering, hedonistic, perverse, outrageously overdone and utterly tedious. I can handle the unsavory elements (and expected them) as long as the story is compelling, but that’s not the case. It’s basically a string of coked-up theatrics and perversions in an attractively gothic setting.

Speaking of attractive, one of the few consolations is the jaw-dropping Natasha Richardson in her prime. She was Liam Neeson’s wife from 1994 until her death in 2009 from a skiing accident.

If you want to see a gothic flick set in the 1800s that’s actually decent, check out “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” (1992). For a movie that treads similar terrain that’s really good and in some ways great see “Marie Antoinette” (2006). “Gothic” is trash by comparison and fittingly bombed at the box office. Sometimes director Ken Russell’s unique projects work, like “Altered States” (1980), but not this.

The film runs 1 hour, 27 minutes, and was shot at Gaddesden Place & Wrotham Park in Herfordshire, England. Thomas Dolby wrote the score, his first and last.

GRADE: C-/D+