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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Inspirational Summer, March 11, 2002
This review is from: Haunted Summer [VHS] (VHS Tape)
This is one of the best films I have ever seen, and one few films I would love to own a copy of. I was amazed by the depth of these characters and the actors skill in portraying them. Frankly I was inspired and wanted to learn more. The very next day I went to the library and began to research information about Byron, Percy and Mary. After learning more about these poeple I felt that the director did a excellent job in capturing their true essence. Exposure to their lives and work has helped to improve my own. In the years following my first exposure to this film I have found it increasingly difficult to locate. If I could only find this in DVD my life would be complete and I would live happily ever after.
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Haunted Summer, November 26, 2001
This review is from: Haunted Summer [VHS] (VHS Tape)
The story of how Mary Shelley came to write Frankenstein is, in my humble opinion, so much better than the book she wrote. And the only reason I say this is because what we see in Haunted Summer is true, and this kind of truth always makes for great entertainment for the artist and romantic among us.This movie has only one serious rival, that being Ken Russell's Gothic, which mixes fiction in with fact. Percy Shelley and Lord Byron are among the second generation of English Romantic poets, and their meeting in Switzerland in 1816 leads to many stormy nights in Byron's house, where Shelley, Byron, Mary Godwin, Claire Clairmont and Dr. John Polidori experiment with free love, drugs and ghost stories, all eventually leading Polidori to write The Vampyre (the most popular undead story before Dracula) and Mary Shelley to write Frankenstein. If you enjoy studying English Romanticism, then you must see this movie. I give this movie four stars, and would give it five had Byron's suggestion that they each write a ghost story not been missing.
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Shimmering and debauched, June 4, 2003
This review is from: Haunted Summer [VHS] (VHS Tape)
You can just feel the creativity spark and sizzle in this movie. It's the summer of 1816, and authors Lord Byron, Mary Godwin (later to be Mary Shelley) and Percy Shelley escape repressive England for Lake Geneva. That part is historically accurate, although how much of the rest is true, who knows? They have many discussions about life and art, use drugs medicinally and non-medicinally, cavort in the bedrooms, get frightened by a storm, and play mind games on each other. All this adds up to an ecstasy for creation, with a realization of the dark side of man's urge to control the natural world. Alice Krige is excellent, passionate and thoughtful as Mary Godwin, who got her inspiration for Frankenstein that summer. Her parents were early feminists and she definitely doesn't simper or believe herself inferior to the men. The scenery and costumes are all glorious and the other leads are good, including Eric Stoltz as Shelley, and Laura Dern as Byron's lover. ...P>I also loved how uninhibited these people were. They have many of the values that many in our society have today, but they lived almost 200 years ago. They loved to push the limits of mans ability to experience life, all in the service of their art. I wouldn't want to live the way they did, but I'm glad they did, so they could report back to us in their poetry and stories what the "other side" is like. Our culture wouldn't be what it is today without the Romantic visionaries of the 19th century.
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