Directed by Ken Russell • 1986 • United Kingdom
Starring Gabriel Byrne, Julian Sands, Natasha Richardson

Ken Russell imagines the origins of Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” as only he could: with a feverish, hallucinatory excess bordering on the demented. On a stormy night in 1816 at Lord Byron’s (Gabriel Byrne) Villa Diodati in Switzerland, poet Percy Shelley (Julian Sands), his soon-to-be wife Mary Godwin (Natasha Richardson), and select other guests gather for a debauched evening of hallucinogens, ghost stories, and a séance. As they conjure their deepest fears, the line between fantasy and reality begins to dissolve.