Review #1,419: 'Gothic' (1986)

The story goes that during the summer of 1816, renowned British poet and philanderer Lord Byron invited fellow poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and his wife Mary Godwin to stay at his grand Villa Diodati in Switzerland. As the weather took a nasty turn and a storm raged outside, the threesome, along with Byron's physician Dr. John Polidori and Mary's stepsister Claire Clairmont, gathered around the fire to share ghost stories. This event allegedly spawned two incredibly influential works of literature, although they didn't come from the poets. Mary Godwin, who would become Mary Shelley, released Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus in 1818, and Polidori would go on to pen The Vampyre, the first published vampire story and obvious inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula. It's the kind of myth rooted in fact that has filmmakers licking their lips. James Whale used this gathering as a framing device for The Bride of Frankenstein, but Ken Russell took his own idea and ran with it, and the result is a strange, psychosexual horror that fails to really fit into any discernible genre.

We begin with a group of socialites gossiping amongst themselves as they spy on Lord Byron's mansion through a telescope. I supposed this is meant to be us, the viewer, as we giddily peak behind the doors of a known rascal as he awaits the arrival of some of the most soon-to-be-revered writers in Britain. Percy (Julian Sands) and Mary (Natasha Richardson) arrive, and Byron, played by Gabriel Byrne, watches them with indifference. His mistress Claire (Myriam Cyr) and physician Polidori (Timothy Spall) are already there, enjoying the freedom of Byron's home. As the drinks start to flow, Byron start to read excerpts from Phatasmagoria, a book containing many horror stories, and the group decide to have a seance around a human skull. Immediately after, Claire has a seizure and strange events start to take place. Paintings come alive, odd noises can be heard around the house, and Polidori attempts suicide after experiencing paranoid episodes. Is Byron behind it all? Are supernatural forces really at work? Or are the literary darlings simply seeing their unpublished work come to life?

I'm a huge fan of Ken Russell and his unique, easily-distracted style of film-making, but Gothic is the first film I've seen of his that didn't quite work. He seems to have a million different directions he would like to take Gothic but heads towards all of them at same time. There are dark sexual undercurrents at play, particularly with Byron and Claire's apparently violent and toxic relationship, but they are never fully developed. It seems to have aspirations to be a horror, but Russell simply isn't disciplined enough to follow the genre rule-book. This refusal to conform can often achieve greatness, but Gothic ends up as little more than a collection of slightly camp vignettes involving characters running and screaming down corridors or making spooky statements as the thunder rumbles outside. It also isn't helped by Julian Sands' uniformly terrible performance, whose interpretation of a Romantic poet is to prance around shirtless and blubber like a child. Byrne is perfect casting as the bored poet yearning for new experiences, as is Spall as the creepy, reptilian Polidori. It also looks beautiful, from the sets to the costumes, but it isn't enough to save this from being a rare miss from Russell.


Directed by: Ken Russell
Starring: Gabriel Byrne, Julian Sands, Natasha Richardson, Myriam Cyr, Timothy Spall
Country: UK

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,046: 'Vampire Academy' (2014)

Mark Waters' Vampire Academy, based on the hugely successful series of young-adult novels by author Richelle Mead, spends so much of its 100-plus minute running time trying to explain itself and attempting to conjure the same level of mass hysteria that surrounded the likes of the Twilight and Harry Potter books, that it isolates nigh-on everybody apart from those already completely in love with the source material. It's an uncomfortable hybrid of the aforementioned Twilight (sexy vampires!) and Harry Potter (a secret school for magical types!), yet makes Stephanie Meyer and J.K. Rowling's work seem like Dostoyevsky in comparison.

Rose Hathaway (Zoey Deutch) and Lissa Dragomir (Lucy Fry) have run away from St. Vladimir's Academy, trying desperately to live like real humans do. Rose is a Dhampir, a half-vampire, half-human hybrid who has dedicated her life to protecting Lissa, a royal Moroi (peace-loving vampire), and the two share a psychic connection which allows Rose to occasional eavesdrop on Lissa. A year after fleeing the school, they are re-captured by 'dreamy' Russian Dhampir Dimitri (Danila Kozlovsky), who whisks them both back into the care of headmistress Kirova (Olga Kurylenko), but not before battling off some red-eyed Strigoi (evil vampire). Once back, Lissa is the victim of a series of attacks, including dead animals being left for her to find, and threats scrawled on her wall written in blood.

It's the slightest of plots, yet Vampire Academy still somehow manages to feel over-stuffed. While Rose struggles to explain the entire universe as well as several characters' back-stories via her own brand of sarcastic narration ripped shamelessly from Juno (2007), there's little time to catch up with what is actually going on and no time at all to care. Even for a film that feels like it was based on a teenagers' work of clumsily sculpted fan-fiction (although I haven't read the book), the complete absence of wit and social observation comes as a shock given the film boasts the talents of Daniel Waters, who wrote the wonderfully dark Heathers (1988), and his brother Mark, director of the surprisingly hilarious Mean Girls (2004). Any plans for a franchise were quickly and thankfully scrapped when the film bombed upon release, and it's not difficult to see why. The whole experience is stilted and awkward, and Deutch is unbearably annoying throughout.


Directed by: Mark Waters
Starring: Zoey Deutch, Lucy Fry, Danila Kozlovsky, Gabriel Byrne, Dominic Sherwood, Olga Kurylenko, Sarah Hyland
Country: USA/UK

Rating: *

Tom Gillespie

Review #740: 'The Usual Suspects' (1995)

Thanks mainly to Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs (1992), the 1990's saw the re-emergence of crime noir - talky, violent thrillers packed with colourful characters and even more colourful language. Bryan Singer's The Usual Suspects was one of the best of the bunch, thanks mainly to the director taking influence from past masters such as Hitchcock, Lang and Kurosawa, rather than the many Tarantino copycats that flooded the 90's cinema market, who did little but poorly imitate the big-chinned one's chatty screenplays and outlandish, darkly humorous violence. It also had a killer twist; one that will baffle as much as it will surprise, or possibly induce cries of cheap manipulation.

After what appears to be a heist gone wrong on an exploded boat, the only surviving witness, Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey), a disabled con-man, is brought in to be interrogated by customer officer Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri). Having already been acquitted by some mysterious higher powers, Kint is probed by Kujan for more information. He tells a story of five criminals who meets in a line-up - Dean Keaton (Gabriel Byrne), a steely criminal gone straight, Michael McManus (Stephen Baldwin), an entry man with a short fuse, Todd Hockney (Kevin Pollak), a hijacker, Fred Fenster (Benicio Del Toro), McManus's partner, and Kint himself. Having being picked up one time too many, the group hatch a plot to pay the crooked cops back, and eventually start taking jobs from the shady Redfoot (Peter Greene).

While the build-up to the explosion seen at the beginning of the film is relatively formulaic in its execution, Singer and screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie (who won an Oscar for his efforts) inject enough humour into the script to bring these characters alive, and bring them over to your side. The clever thing is that it soon becomes apparent that everything were seeing either isn't true or isn't at all relevant, and it's the increasingly looming presence of the mysterious and infamous criminal mastermind Keyser Soze, who may in fact hold all the cards. The twist is not particularly clever at all, and isn't that hard to guess, but the director's skill in capturing it is what makes it so memorable.

The now-iconic poster wouldn't be so iconic if the characters hadn't been so memorably played by it's cast. With the exception of Kint, the characters are little but stock characters, but there is genuine chemistry, especially in the line-up scene where they crack up after Baldwin's over-the-top delivery of a line. Byrne proves again that he is much more deserving than the mediocre roles he tends to land, and Spacey bagged a Supporting Actor Oscar for his puppy-dog con-man. It's far, far from deserving of its place as #23 on IMDb's top films of all time, but The Usual Suspects is riveting stuff, even after it's umpteenth viewing.


Directed by: Bryan Singer
Starring: Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, Chazz Palminteri, Stephen Baldwin, Kevin Pollak, Benicio Del Toro, Pete Postlethwaite, Giancarlo Esposito
Country: USA/Germany

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie