Frame By Frame – Gothic (1986)

Year – 1986
Decade – 1980s
Cinematographer – Mike Southon
Director – Ken Russell
Genre – Horror
Keywords – 1980s horror; British films; British horror
Studio – Vestron
Shooting Location – England
Aspect Ratio – 1.85
Format – 35mm film with spherical lenses

The Movie
In the summer of 1816, poet Lord Byron invited a cadre of young luminaries (including Mary and Percy Shelley and John William Polidori) to spend time at his villa on the shores of Lake Geneva in Switzerland. To entertain themselves, they concocted horror stories to frighten each other – tales that inspired the creation of Shelley’s Frankenstein and Polidori’s The Vampyre. Gothic consolidates those events into a single night that – since this retelling comes courtesy of director Ken Russell – unfolds as a drug-laced bacchanal of sacrilege, vulgarity, masochism, none-too-subtle phallic symbols and generally questionable decorum.

Vestron picked up the video distribution rights for Gothic and the film did well enough that the label signed Russell to a three-picture deal that spawned Salome’s Last Dance, The Lair of the White Worm and The Rainbow.

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Cinematographer Mike Southon (Paperhouse, Little Man Tate, and iconic music videos for Faith and November Rain) on Gothic, from his official website:

Ken wanted to use wide angle lenses for many of the scenes which meant most of my lighting had to be from behind the camera, the worst place for atmospheric cinematography. By stacking an array of lights through flicker boxes and reflecting them into mylar mirrors at the back of the room I think I managed to create an appropriately hallucinatory milieu.

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Posted on October 23, 2023 0 By mattmulcahey Frame By Frame Posted in Frame By Frame Tagged #frames 1.85, frames 1980s, frames 1980s horror, frames 1986, frames british films, frames british horror, frames england, frames horror, frames ken russell, frames mike southon, frames vestron

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