OK, well the premise of the story seemed kind of cool, the famous weekend Mary & Percy Shelly stayed at Lord Byron's estate, resulting in the writing of FRANKENSTEIN. Only an hour and a half long, I figured it was worth seeing, although I'm always dubious of Ken Russell films. They are offbeat, impressionistic and rife with shocking imagery - often sexual/violent.
As Masha said about recently watching a John Waters movie, "I believe that is all the explanation necessary." Same for this Ken Russell film.
I've always felt Russell's films benefit from multiple viewing because they are often confusing to those who prefer a more spoon-fed or linear type story and this is no exception.
Like Kubrick -but far less successful- Russell likes to just present seemingly fragmented scenes & dialogue for the viewer to formulate the story. His generous use of symbolism often successfully evokes the desired emotions helping to round out the story.
It seems either his scripts or maybe editing are what fail in his movies.
It certainly isn't "production" this movie looks GREAT. The costumes & hair weresn't historical, but it doesn't matter. The lighting and the sets were familiar but retained an "otherworldly" feel, almost as if the viewer is "dreaming" - again- Kubrick is the Master of this.
I was distracted however, by the set choice of randomly covering walls with crimson fabric. I don't know if it was to block windows from ruining the photography or cover the estate's modern upgrades or a symbolic visual element but it didn't work.
When the movie was over he looked at me & said "I wasted 3 hours of my life seeing it. Twice. I can't believe I ever liked that."
I suspect it was mostly the Gothic atmosphere of the story, nudity & open sexual play reached the 16-17 year old emotionally, while a few decades later prefers more of a "story" haha. And that's what I like about dreamlike stream-of-conscious style movies. They manipulate you with the emphasis on imagerey rather than dialogue-just like the movie's poster:
![Image](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f7/Gothic-1986-poster.png)