Movie Info
Movie Name: The Gorgon
Studio: Hammer Film Productions
Genre(s): Horror
Release Date(s): August 21, 1964
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Do I have something in my hair?
When a woman is killed in the German village of Vandorf and her lover Bruno Heitz (Jerremy Longhurst) commits suicide, Bruno’s father Professor Jules Heitz (Michael Goodliffe) comes to find out the truth about his son’s death. With claims of a killer stalking the countryside, Professor Heitz finds the more horrifying truth as he’s turned to stone in death. Bruno’s brother and Professor Heitz’s son Paul (Richard Pasco) travels to Vandorf to find the truth and encounters an ancient Greek myth instead.
Directed by Terence Fisher, The Gorgon is a classic Hammer Horror picture based on the Greek myth of the Gorgons. The low budget film has been collected on DVD with some of Hammer’s other horror films.
Nope…not turning to stone…this is just my natural skin tone…
The Gorgon is a pretty interesting Hammer film. I loved Greek mythology growing up and of course Medusa is one of the best and scariest “monsters” of mythology…how do you fight a creature you can’t see? The problem with The Gorgon is that they have an idea for a story, but it almost seems like they never got past the idea phase.
The story of The Gorgon is pretty weak. The story also seems pretty segmented. First, Bruno Heitz is killed…then his father comes and is killed…then his brother comes and gets killed. I wish that all of this could have been worked into a tighter story that was a bit more thrilling and scary. Plus, you get the weird “Megara is only a Gorgon on the nights of the full moon”…which has no basis in anything.
I swear we’ve met before…
The movie has a nice cast with the classic Hammer combo of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee (in this version Cushing is playing the villainous character which is a bit of a switch). Barbara Shelley is nice as Carla Hoffman the woman who is secretly the Gorgon (though the Gorgon herself is played by Prudence Hyman). The movie also has an appearance by Doctor Who’s second Doctor Patrick Troughton as the local inspector.
The visuals for The Gorgon are where The Gorgon falls apart. The original plan was to work in a way to use actual snakes for the Gorgon’s hair…instead you have cheesy little rubbers snakes that pop out of her head. The filmmakers did a good job trying to work around this with shots, but the goofiness of the Gorgon costume does hurt the overall product.
The Gorgon is a different Hammer film and one worth seeking out. It makes me wish for more mythology based horror movies and wish that The Gorgon was a bit better. It really doesn’t make much sense why the whole town seemed so bent on protecting a killing monster, but hey, all towns need a tourist attraction.
