Terence Fisher returned with his Dracula (1958) stars Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing to petrify horror fans with The Gorgon, which combines elements of folk horror with gothic horror, the genre so familiar to Fisher’s filmmaking. Call it smart or surprising, his approach in a number of ways stood at 180 degrees to that he took in Dracula. Arguably, it didn’t fail the movie though a few other weaknesses undermined its potential success.

In bringing to screen the ancient Greek mythological figure of Gorgon, a fearsome female monster, screenwriter John Gilling adapted J. Llewellyn Devine’s story that seemingly took quite some liberty with the original Greek folklore. Whereas the Greeks knew Medusa as the Gorgon (one of three sisters; the other two being Stheno and Euryale) carryin...

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