Emily Bronte’s great novel is widely considered a gothic romance, but most movie
adaptations have emphasized the latter over the former. Yet, the actual text is
much more gothic than romantic. This film swings the pendulum about as far as
it goes in the gothic direction. In the recent tradition of horror movies
inspired by Pinocchio and other public domain characters, Heathcliff and Catherine
get similar treatment in Rebecca J. Matthews’ Wuthering Heights: House of
the Damned, which releases today on VOD.
Just
like the “source novel,” House of the Damned starts with the new tenant
at the Grange, Mr. Lockwood, paying a social call on his landlord at Wuthering
Heights. However, instead of appreciating the friendly gesture, Heathcliff is
rather put out by his presence. Nevertheless, a sudden storm forces Lockwood to
spend the night in a guest room, where he finds and reads Catherine Earnshaw’s
diary.
Of
course, she and Heathcliff, the orphan who became her father’s ward, were
deeply in love, but in an unhealthy way. Regardless, it was not meant to be.
She married the older Edgar Linton instead and it ended in tears—especially in
this film. Later, Lockwood’s housekeeper Nelly fills in more of the blanks.
However, in this version, every natural death is actually quite unnatural.
Something is rotten in Wuthering Heights—and whatever it is, it makes Lockwood gravely
ill during his second, unwelcome visit.
Screenwriter
Liana Failla quite cleverly follows the outline of Bronte’s novel, while incorporating
gory demises for most of the characters. Unlike many of the recent killer
Popeyes and Steamboat Willies, House of the Damned was not conceived as
a quick and dirty exploitation knockoff. Failla and Matthews developed a real
strategy for transforming Bronte’s novel into a horror film.
Unfortunately, they were working with a budget that was probably less than the
average vintage Hammer horror film, not adjusting for inflation. Those
financial constraints sometimes show on-screen. Yet, some fans will still appreciate
the lurid retro gothic atmosphere.
Except for a few poems also published, Emily Bronte is basically a one-hit
wonder, but as part of the Bronte Sisters, she doesn’t seem like one. Of
course, the Brontes wouldn’t be the same Brontes without Wuthering Heights.
Her short but appropriately melodramatic life is somewhat speculatively
dramatized in director-screenwriter Frances O’Connor’s Emily, which opens
tomorrow in New York.
Emily
is always considered the flaky Bronte sister, especially her father, Patrick. The
stern minister expected all his surviving daughters to be educated and find
employment as teachers, but Emily fell apart whenever she left the Bronte
ancestral home. If it was any consolation, her ne-er-do-well brother Branwell is
an even greater disappointment, so naturally they bond over their love of
poetry and mischievous pranks.
Initially,
the middle Bronte sister think very little of the new curate, William
Weightman, who shares her father’s faith-above-reason approach to theology. At
first, she resents his moralizing, especially when tutoring her in French.
However, their bickering eventually melts into an ill-fated romance.
Bronte’s
relationship with Weightman is almost entirely fictionalized, as are some of
the colorful gothic episodes O’Connor cooks up, but they all fit with the
Bronte legend. In fact, there are some sequences with a creepy mask that are
surprisingly cool and effective.
