Poet Shelley spends night at Lord Byron's. Year 1986 Video Release 2002-02-26 Genre Horror MPAA Rating R Color Color Runtime 90 Animated Live-Action Full Synopsis 1816. A sprawling villa in Switzerland is the setting for the night of the Haunted Summer, when five famous friends gather around an ancient skull to conjure up their darkest fears. Poets Lord Byron and Percy Shelley; Shelley's fiancee, Mary Godwin; Mary's stepsister, Claire Clairmont; and Byron's friend, Dr. John Polidori, spend a hallucinogenic evening confronting their fears in an orgiastic frenzy of shock lunacy that later inspired Mary Shelley to write the classic FRANKENSTEIN and Dr. Polidori to pen THE VAMPYRE, which became the basis for the creation of Dracula. One fateful evening, two legends were born, in Ken Russell's GOTHIC. Director Ken Russell Cast Ken Russell; Gabriel Byrne; Julian Sands; Natasha Richardson; Myriam Cyr; Timothy Spall; Alec Mango; Andreas Wisniewski; Dexter Fletcher; Pascal King; Tom Hickey