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A special screening of classic horror Gothic comes to Newcastle Castle
A good horror story will leave an indelible impression that stays with you forever; 200 years ago, two of the most lasting tales of terror were crafted, and Ken Russell’s film Gothic which captured this magical night is given a very special screening in The Great Hall of Newcastle Castle Keep, as Novocastria Macabre present a majestic evening of fright on Friday 17th June.
In 1816, poets Byron and Shelley, Byron’s doctor Polidori and Shelley’s mistress Mary Godwin (later to become his wife) gathered in a villa on Lake Geneva and dared each other to write ghost stories. What followed lead to Polidori’s The Vampire and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and the foundations of horror were laid. Ken Russell brings that fateful night to life on screen, and the young Romantics demonic séance and descent into a sex and opium-fuelled nightmare world is vividly imagined in the film. Screened within the perfectly atmospheric surroundings of Newcastle Castle and with screenwriter of the film Stephen Volk (Ghostwatch, Afterlife, Awakening) and David Pirie (author of A Heritage Of Horror, The Vampire Cinema, Murder Rooms) also in attendance to talk about the film, horror fans will rarely have an evening that’ll indulge their love of the genre so well.
