Gothic: Living or Dead?

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Which cast and crew of 1986 film by Ken Russell Gothic are living and who are dead?

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By Adder Lovelace

Updated 18 March 2023

Image info

Artist	5of7
Credit	http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/5881968893/
License	cc-by-sa-2.0
Desc	Julian Sands attending the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo in BMO Centre, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Usage	Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0

Image info/credit

1986 film by Ken Russell

Gothic

Released	1986 (36 years, 4 months ago)

Director	Ken Russell
Duration	87 minutes
Genre	horror film, vampire film and drama film
Composer	Thomas Dolby
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Screenwriter	Stephen Volk

About Gothic

Gothic is a 1986 British horror film directed by Ken Russell, starring Gabriel Byrne as Lord Byron, Julian Sands as Percy Bysshe Shelley, Natasha Richardson as Mary Shelley, Myriam Cyr as Claire Clairmont (Mary Shelley's stepsister) and Timothy Spall as Dr. John William Polidori. It features a soundtrack by Thomas Dolby, and marks Richardson's film debut.

The film is a fictionalized retelling of the Shelleys' visit to Lord Byron in Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva, shot in Gaddesden Place. It concerns their competition to write a horror story, which ultimately led to Mary Shelley writing Frankenstein and John Polidori writing The Vampyre. The same event has also been portrayed in the films Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Haunted Summer (1988), among others.

The film's poster motif is based on Henry Fuseli's painting The Nightmare, which is also referenced in the film.