Browse: Home / GOTHIC is a sly look at creation through modern chemistry

Menu

Skip to content
  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
  • Login

The-SoluteLogo

A Film Site By Lovers of Film

Menu

Skip to content
  • Features
  • Reviews
  • Long Reviews
  • News
  • Articles and Opinions
  • Other Media
  • Film on the Internet: BASKET CASE
  • New on DVD and Blu-Ray
  • Taco Break: Overplayed But Still Funny
  • Celebrating the Living: Mercedes Ruehl
  • Attention Must Be Paid: Arthur Anderson
Missing image

GOTHIC is a sly look at creation through modern chemistry

Posted By Julius Kassendorf on August 20, 2014 in Reviews | 2 Responses

The spark of creation. In some stories, this could be as literal as lightning. In the case of Gothic, the spark of creation is the sparks of electricity that shoot in your brain to create the world around you. In this case, the sparks are given a push by a night of taking laudanum.

The origin of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and John Polidori’s Vampyre is generally fabled to be a night at Lord Byron’s remote island castle with Percy Shelley, Byron, and Mary’s half-sister Claire. In Gothic, they drink, take a whole shitton of laudanum, read ghost stories, have sex, have a seance, and hallucinate themselves half to death.

Almost the entirety of Ken Russell’s masterpiece is a hallucination of some sort. Within 10 minutes, everybody is drinking laudanum, and they never ever stop. Especially Percy Shelley who is having a freakout due to the haunted nature of the evening. Percy and Mary are haunted by Mary’s previous abortion, while Byron is dealing with Mary telling him that Claire is pregnant and he better not hurt her. Combining a heavy opiate with death and newborn life, suddenly everything is given a great horrific weight.

Byron and Percy also spend much of their time espousing on free love. But Polidori’s presence as a tortured homosexual who is lusting after two heteroflexible men with girlfriends, plus the weighty presence of pregnancy and abortion, life and death, undercut the mindless drug-addled rantings of two horny men. Essentially, Russell was pointing out the hypocrisies and limitations of the 1960s sexual revolution while also indulging in its belief system. Similar limitations were shown in The Source Family, when they basically ignore any homosexuals.

Gothic is one of Ken Russell’s ultimate tricks. It’s a story about creation disguised as a drug and sex movie disguised (and marketed) as a horror movie. If anything, Gothic should be watched for pure ballsiness alone. Russell gives himself free reign to indulge in his favorite cinematic tricks for 87 minutes, and that’s not entirely bad. From having mechanical sex dolls to goats running around the castle to trees catching on fire to mutated breasts to to to, Russell is having a devil of a time pushing the visual stimulation of the audience.

Which also proves to be a problem for most audiences. Watching Gothic as a horror movie is a frustrating endeavor because nobody is in danger of anything except themselves. Watching Gothic as a historical is interesting, but rarely are historical hallucinations completely telling. Watching Gothic as a drug movie leaves a sour taste as all the drugs are fueled with a nightmare intensity. You have to be able to accept all three at once and be on your toes at all times.

That being said…a horror movie of hallucination is fantastic fun. Plus, all the sex and drugs and wild-eyed extremeness makes Gothic a required viewing. Especially late night just before you go to sleep. You might even be tempted to write something the next day as great as Frankenstein.

This review is part of Oldflix, a series of articles that highlights films soon to be eliminated from Netflix Streaming.

Posted in Reviews | Tagged 1986, Drugs, Gothic, Historical, Horror, Ken Russell, Oldflix

About the Author

Julius Kassendorf

Julius Kassendorf is the founder of The-Solute, and previously founded The Other FIlms and Project Runaways in 2013. There, he dabbled in form within reviews to better textualize thought processes about the medium of film.

Previously, he has blogged at other, now-defunct, websites that you probably haven’t heard of, and had a boyfriend in Canada for many years. Julius resides in Seattle, where he enjoys the full life of the Seattle Film Community.

Julius’ commanding rule about film: Don’t Be Common. He believes the worst thing in the world is for a film to be like every other film, with a secondary crime of being a film with little to no ambition.

Related Posts

Film on the Internet: BASKET CASE→

Furnace by Livia Llewellyn – The Solute Book Club→

The Solute Book Club: FURNACE (An Introduction)→

Film on the Internet: SMILE→

  • Comments
  • Popular
  • Most Recent
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleWonderful piece, Sam. It's made…
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleFellow heretic here. I've never…
  • n***********@gmail.com'
    Ruck Cohlchez on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEI wouldn't have called it…
  • j***********@gmail.com'
    Son of Griff on LIFE ITSELFGlad to hear back from…
  • n*********@gmail.com'
    Jake Gittes on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEThis is the single most…
  • “The End” of SAVAGES

    33820 views / Posted November 10, 2014
  • What the fuck did I just watch? SPHERE

    27447 views / Posted March 19, 2015
  • The Untalented Mr. Ripley: The Craft of Standup Comedy and the Non-Comedy of TOM MYERS

    25062 views / Posted June 26, 2018
  • Scenic Routes: SHOWGIRLS (1995)

    20093 views / Posted November 20, 2014
  • Yvonne, or: CASABLANCA In One Character and Three Scenes

    11136 views / Posted August 21, 2014
  • Film on the Internet: BASKET CASE

    March 22, 2023 / ZoeZ
  • New on DVD and Blu-Ray

    March 21, 2023 / Greta Taylor
  • Taco Break: Overplayed But Still Funny

    March 20, 2023 / Tristan "Drunk Napoleon" Nankervis
  • Don't mess with a Mercedes Ruehl character!

    Celebrating the Living: Mercedes Ruehl

    March 19, 2023 / Gillianren
  • You, too, can hear this image once you know the voice

    Attention Must Be Paid: Arthur Anderson

    March 18, 2023 / Gillianren

Last Tweets

  • Film on the Internet: BASKET CASE - https://t.co/ncsoMwqyRT, 13 hours ago
  • New on DVD and Blu-Ray - https://t.co/M5EgBdApIf, Mar 21
  • Taco Break: Overplayed But Still Funny - https://t.co/U2QP75rwcu, Mar 20

©2014 - 2016 The-Solute | Hosted, Developed and Maintained by Bellingham WP LogoBellinghamWP.com.

Menu

  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
  • Login
Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!