I Think, Therefore I Review.: Gothic

I Think, Therefore I Review.: Gothic: Kinky and Weird Gothic Not For Everyone By Leigh Wood


Sometimes I wonder if stars Gabriel Byrne, Julian Sands, and Natasha Richardson are embarrassed by Ken Russell’s 1986 horror romp Gothic. I like its sexual and psychological horror blurs between dreams andreality, but I picked up the DVD at the Dollar Store, so maybe that says something
 

Young couple Percy (Julian Sands) and Mary Shelley (Natasha Richardson) travel with Mary’s half sister Claire (Miriam Cyr) to Lord Byron’s (Gabriel Byrne) estate outside Geneva. The stormy lair is full of dark shadows and sexual fun for the uptight Shelleys, and one night with Lord Byron leads them to discover their worst fears and desires-inspirations that lead to the creation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein...

I Think, Therefore I Review.: Lady Chatterley's Lover (1981)

I Think, Therefore I Review.: Lady Chatterley's Lover (1981): Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Again. By Leigh Wood

So, I’m up late at night with no satisfying porn-er film- to be had-until the 1981 version of Lady Chatterley’s Lover comes on. Shorter and a little more uninvolved than Ken Russell’s 1993 adaptation, this version suffers from weak casting and bad styling more than anything else.

After Sir Clifford Chatterley (Shane Briant) is injured in the war and returns home paralyzed, his young marriage to Connie (Sylvia Kristel) strains. Though Clifford gives Connie permission to seek an upper-class lover, she herself becomes sick with the burdens of the household and her husband’s illness. When Mrs. Bolton (Ann Mitchell) comes to the estate to nurse the Baronet, she also suggests ‘fresh air and healthy activity’ for Connie. It’s a prescription that leads Lady Chatterley towards her husband’s strong and brutish gamekeeper Mellors (Nicholas Clay)....