The film is a fictionalized retelling of the Shelleys' visit to Lord Byron in Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva, shot in Gaddesden Place.

Through her stepsister Claire Clairmont, Mary Godwin and her future husband Percy Shelley come to know Lord Byron.

Lord Byron shows his guests Phantasmagoria, a book of horror stories he purchased from a shop in Geneva, and the three alternately read excerpts.

Meanwhile, Mary consoles Percy, who has grown increasingly paranoid and claims to smell an overpowering scent of decay.

Percy raves that the group collectively gave birth to something during the séance, manifesting their worst fears, while Polidori is scared of damnation for his homosexuality.

Claire goes missing from her bedroom, and is discovered by Percy; he watches in horror as her breasts metamorphose into eyes; Mary attempts to flee the house, and inadvertently crashes through a glass door.

Byron and Percy, both atheists, believe it must be returned to the recesses of their minds, while Mary questions the metaphysical and supernatural events plaguing them.

As she flees through the home, Mary witnesses an apparition of her son, William, in a coffin, followed by a vision of her suffering a miscarriage.

From Mary's previous experience of miscarriage came the desire to raise her child from the dead, which led to her writing Frankenstein.

The film fictionalizes an actual meeting that took place between Mary Godwin, Percy Shelley, and Claire Clairemont at the Villa Diodati in Geneva, hosted by Lord Byron.

[7] It has been suggested by some historians and journalists that the events of their meeting which inspired Shelley's Frankenstein and Polidori's "The Vampyre" were triggered by the group's use of opium during their vacation together.

[7]The film implies that Shelley's Frankenstein was inspired by the loss of her child; film historian Robert Shail wrote that Gothic's "baroque visuals can't disguise the dubious nature of Russell's premise that the book was inspired by the author's loss of a baby.

Clark said "it was worlds removed from the scripts that one predominantly gets in this country, with their literary ambience and dependence on a sort of linguistic authenticity.

Volk admits to having "slight misgivings" when Clark mentioned Russell's name, "But when I met Ken, I found, somehow to my surprise, that he was very easy to get on with".

He said, "About 10 years ago, Robert Powell, the actor, approached me with a script covering the same time span and events.

James Ivory is like an ornithologist watching his subjects with a pair of binoculars from afar, whereas Ken Russell is a big-game hunter filming in the middle of a rhino charge.

"[16] The film's music score was written and recorded by the English new wave and synth-pop musician Thomas Dolby.

The album's closing track, "The Devil is an Englishman", was released as a single; credited to "Screamin' Lord Byron," the song features Timothy Spall reciting lyrics over Dolby's music and also includes vocal samples from Gothic.

A second poster, based on the Fuseli painting, features Natasha Richardson lying over a bed with a goblin-like creature perched on her chest (an image which is also depicted in the film).

All this seems rather silly since ... it is a pretty exact pastiche of a well-known Fuseli painting that's been perverting visitors to the Tate for some years.

Vestron, the company who distributed the film on video, signed Russell to a three-picture contract which ensured him financing for the rest of the decade.

[25] For the film's U.S. release, Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote that the film "isn't always coherent, but it's as ghoulishly funny and frenzied as a carnival ride through The Marquis de Sade's Tunnel of Love," adding: "Don't go to Gothic expecting to be elevated.

"[26] Desson Howe from The Washington Post wrote, "Beyond the carnalia... Gothic happens to be strikingly shot, the special effects inspired, albeit gruesome.

Although he slops his signature blood 'n' cleavage across the screen, Russell makes it slick, with dynamic cutting, vivid lighting and framing.

It is yet another crime of passion committed by Ken Russell, and his sort of berserk creativity has fallen on such hard times in this age of Reagan and yuppie sensibility, that simply to be exposed to the ravings of an inspired madman is cathartic.

The undeniable truth of GOTHIC, as in all the work of Ken Russell (an artist who is either so mad or so foolhardy as not to care if he wins or loses), is that it is palpably ALIVE.