Haunted Summer (1988)

Set in the summer of 1816, the poet Lord Byron (Philip Anglim) invites fellow poet Percy Shelley (Eric Stoltz), his lover Mary (Alice Krige) and her stepsister Claire (Laura Dern) to spend the summer with him at his villa in Switzerland. Based on the novel By Anne Edwards and directed Ivan Passer (BORN TO WIN). The previous year (1987), Ken Russell had taken the same story under the title of GOTHIC and being Russell, he made an over the top hallucinatory film. It wasn't a good movie at all but it was still superior to this pretentious effort. The two American actors (Dern, Stoltz) have British accents so inadequate that it took quite awhile until I figured out that they were even attempting accents! But the screenplay by Lewis John Carlino (RESURRECTION) is so inept that I can't blame any of the actors for coming across as nitwits or their inferior performances. Lousy as Russell's movie was, at least it was never dull. With Alex Winter.