The story of Mary Shelley writing Frankenstein as part of a ghost story challenge issued by Lord Byron during a rainy summer at Lake Geneva is a rather fascinating one, and it's a story writer/director Nora Unkel has dug into with her film A Nightmare Wakes. Shudder will be releasing the psychological thriller through their streaming service on February 4th, just a few days after the 170th anniversary of Shelley's death on February 1st, 1851, and in anticipation of the film's release we've got the trailer embedded above.
Alix Wilton Regan, Giullian Yao Gioiello, Philippe Bowgen, Lee Garrett, Claire Glassford, and Shannon Spangler star in A Nightmare Wakes, which has the following synopsis:
While composing her famous novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley descends into an opium-fueled fever dream while carrying on a torrid love affair with Percy Shelley. As she writes, the characters of her novel come to life and begin to plague her relationship with Percy. Before long, she must choose between true love and her literary masterpiece.
An unsettlingly intimate portrayal of a brilliant artist at her most troubled, A NIGHTMARE WAKES traces the tortured birth of a timeless masterwork and the rightful ascension of its creator to stand alongside her creation.
The film is said to be "steeped in accurate period details, but told with a modern perspective".
Shudder's Craig Engler had this to say about it:
Mary Shelley helped create two of the most popular genres in cinema, horror and science fiction. Yet her story has too often fallen beneath the shadow of the iconic monster she created. With A NIGHTMARE WAKES, Nora Unkel gives us an opportunity to see Mary in a new light, and to appreciate her accomplishments anew."
Unkel added:
With her Creature and Creator, Mary Shelley created science fiction as an entire genre and transfixed 1800s Europe in ways never thought possible. Shelley’s struggle with love, loss, abandonment by society and family, and her own sanity, had yet to be captured fully on-screen. She lived a colorful life of love, drugs, and freedom alongside some of the most celebrated artists of her day. With A NIGHTMARE WAKES, I hope to leave Shudder members enraptured by Shelley’s chilling, intimate, and dark narrative, inspired by how much her story is, in fact, our own."
A Nightmare Wakes is A Logical Pictures and Wild Obscura production, in association with Zed.film, The Spitting Image, and Eggplant Picture and Sound. It was produced by Robert Menzies, Devin Shepherd, Gabriel Rosenstein, Frédéric Fiore, and Eric Tavitian. John Connor, DJ Dodd, Dave Conlon, Bruce Fleming, Paul Moyer, and Dan Wong served as executive producers.