Gothic Film Season

Tuesday 28 April – Sunday 17 May 2026

Join us for a season celebrating the Gothic genre, with screenings of classic and contemporary films.

Films in the season

The Masque of the Red Death 15
Today 18:30

While the plague rages outside..

The Vampire Lovers 15
Today 20:30

In a peaceful hamlet in..

Sleepy Hollow 15
Sun 17 May 17:30

Constable Ichabod Crane is sent..

About the season

The Gothic film tradition has little to do with the eponymous barbarian hordes but rather originated with gothic medieval architecture of the Middle Ages, which provided the landscape, paintings which inspired the images and the German expressionist films of the 1920s, which furnished the mise-en-scene. With the added benefit of cacaphonic sound in the 1930s, adaptations of famous19th century gothic novels came to life as strikingly as Boris Karloff in James Whale’s seminal gothic masterpiece Frankenstein (1931).

Over the years gothic films shifted from haunted castles and satanic churches to old dark houses and the female gothic films of the 1940s. Harsh chiaroscuro lighting gave way to lurid technicolour and the eroticism hinted at in earlier films came strongly to the fore.

Depot’s Gothic Film season runs through May and includes an introductory talk on the origins, themes and history of Gothic on screen, followed by a screening of Albert Lewin’s powerful version of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) with George Sanders on terrific form. The season also includes two double bills. Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1935) is in many ways superior to the original, with the added bonus of a youthful Elsa Lanchester, accompanied by the famous 1931 version of Dracula (Tod Browning) featuring a score by Philip Glass and Bela Legosi’s definitive interpretation.

Our second double bill features Roger Corman’s stunning colour version of The Masque of the Red Death (1962) along with Hammer’s erotic version of Sheridan le Fanu’s Carmilla, The Vampire Lovers (Roy Ward Baker, 1970) with Ingrid Pitt and Madeline Smith .

Tim Burton was also strongly influenced by gothic themes and we will screen his excellent Sleepy Hollow (1999) with a crazed Chris Walken. Completing the season are Robert Wise’s stunning adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting (1963) and the wonderfully scary version of Susan Hill’s gothic masterpiece The Woman in Black (2012).

– Robert Senior, Depot Chair of Trustees and season curator