The
lowdown: 'The Gorgon' is yet another horror
film from the profilic Hammer studio in Britain. However, there
are
no vampires or Frankensteinian monsters in sight. Instead, this 1964 film
is based on the Greek legend of
the
Gorgon, a monstrous female whose gaze turned people to stone. In later
Greek mythology the legend was
revised
and the Gorgon comprised three sisters - Stheno, Euryale and Medusa. The
latter, with a crown of live
vipers
on her head, is the most well-known. However, this film names the Gorgon
as Megaera, although in Greek
mythology
Megaera is actually of the three Fates (and hence the use of the name in
'The Stones of Blood').
'The
Gorgon' is set in a German village, Vandorf, early in the 20th century.
It opens with a young woman telling her
lover
that she is pregnant. They have an argument and she flees into the forest,
where she is attacked. Her body
has
been turned to stone, and her boyfriend, Bruno, is immediately accused
of killing her. Just how the police think
he
is capable of turning her to stone is not explained. Bruno commits sucide,
and the police treat the case as being
closed
- despite the fact that seven people have been turned to stone in recent
years. Bruno's father, Professor Jules
Heitz,
comes to Vandorf seeking the truth about his son's death. He believes that
the killer is not human at all, but
an
ancient evil - the Megaera, the only one of the Gorgon that has survived,
and he is convinced that its spirit now
occupies
the body of somebody in Vandorf. Heitz also becomes a victim of Megeara,
and his other son Paul vows
to
destroy the creature once and for all. He tracks the Megaera to her lair
in the dilapidated Castle Borski, and while
good
triumphs over evil, it comes at a territble cost.
Patrick
Troughton appears in several scenes as Vandorf's chief of police, Inspector
Kanof. It is clear that he is
aware
that something less than human is at large in the village, but like the
rest of the villagers he prefers to cover
up
the truth and deny the existence of the supernatural. Although the script
does not give his character much time
to
develop, it is apparent that he is a man with a conscience, and he is troubled
by the conspiracy of secrecy that
plagues
Vandorf. Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, two veterans of Hammer films,
also star in this film.
The
verdict: 'The Gorgon' is perhaps not one
of Hammer's best films, but it was a great attempt to depart from their
usual Dracula and Frankenstein
fare. The special effects with the Gorgon are not particularly convincing,
but are
quite good for the time.
The fact that the viewer does not really see the Megaera until the climax
of the film helps
build the suspense, although
in reality it is not hard to guess whose body the spirit of Megaera is
inhabiting. The
viewer knows the Gorgon
is a woman, and since only a handful of women feature in the film, it is
quite easy to work
out who the Gorgon is. Nevertheless,
'The Gorgon' is highly recommended for fans of the Hammer Horror series.
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