I would guarantee that anyone of my generation who frequented video stores in the late Eighties and early Nineties and had a certain morbid fascination with the horror section (see also: Creepshow, and any number of Herschell Gordon Lewis atrocities, all of which are still crouching like fanged possums somewhere in the hollow of my skull) will remember this charming little Ken Russell ditty. I never saw the film, not once, not one frame of it, but thanks to this indelible poster/video art, with its horny little devil perched, claw-splayed, like a living gargoyle atop a supine victim in a nightgown (who I now realize is Natasha Richardson...who knew?!), I feel like I've seen the film about eighty-seven times. The late-Eighties Ken Russell comeback, largely buoyed by tantalized video renters no doubt, is dotted with curios such as these (remember Lair of the White Worm? How about Theresa Russell in Whore?), films eternally recalled (and doubtful just by me) for their box art more than anything that happened in them. For the record, Ken Russell's oeuvre is one of my movie gaps, save Women in Love, and I'm not sure that needs to be corrected anytime soon. I prefer my memories of Gothic and its ilk relegated to the dusty shelves of the once-beautiful Video Paradise, small-town video store of my childhood . . . now a Hallmark shop.

This creeped me out as well. But check out his bizarre gaze, as if he's distractedly watching a television sitcom while menacing the babe.

I actually rented it back then! But as it turned out i was way too immature for Russell's sexual shenanigans therein --I remember only that I was immediately scared and there was something about a suit of armor (?) with a horned penis (?) approaching a woman (was it Natasha?) with sadistic sexual intent

I was an easily shocked and sheltered teenager and did not finish watching it

Esh, yeah, I think Growing Pains might be blasting from a TV in the corner. He seems slightly bemused.

Nathaniel, my hats off to you for bringing that box home to your house. That said, suit of armor with a horned penis? Netflix here I come.

It's actually based on the painting "The Nightmare," by Henry Fuseli.

Image url: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/John_Henry_Fuseli_-_The_Nightmare.JPG

Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Henry_Fuseli

BTW, a friend and I tried to watch the movie once, but didn't get through it. I still wonder if Russell's portrayal of P.B. Shelley as a kind of rock star of his age is accurate, since at the beginning he's chased around by young girls like a Beatle in 1964.