Gothic (1986)

In the summer of 1816, Lord Byron (Gabriel Byrne) invites fellow poet Percy Shelley (Julian Sands), his lover (Natasha Richardson) and her stepsister (Miriam Cyr) to join him at his villa in Switzerland. It is there on a dark and stormy night that they let their imaginations run wild and experience hallucinatory horrors. Ken Russell at his excessive worst though it's not nearly as bad as THE MUSIC LOVERS. Russell seems to confuse grossing us out with genuine horror. We're subjected to characters abusing themselves (a character repeatedly slams his hand through a nail then licks the blood), vomiting and spewing out food, maggots and leeches, dead fetuses, crawling on all fours in the mud with a dead rat in your mouth etc., you get the picture? One can't help but feel sorry for the actors humiliating themselves for something that's ultimately utterly silly. Timothy Spall as Dr. Polidor fares the worst though it seems a dummy was used for one of the more revolting acts. Still, you have to hand it to Russell, it's the kind of compelling bad movie you can't take your eyes off. The anachronistic unpleasant underscore is by Thomas Dolby.