One of a thousand pointless questions I kept asking myself during this delightfully serious movie. In particular I love the starched and completely formal performance of Christopher Lee's assistant. This film is great!
share*Spoiler ahead*
Given it was the creature's spirit that was involved, it probably could have settled anywhere it liked. But I understand what you mean about pointless questions. One of the ones I have is what was the deal with the mad woman at the asylum, being treated by Cushing's character? The film seemed to impart some importance on the character early on (which later amounted to very little), but perhaps this was done to provide a somewhat viable alternate in terms of the identity of the gorgon. Given the fact there were only three female characters in the entire film and two of them ended up dead, it wasn't overly difficult to discern the truth about the creature's identity.
I always thought that it was somewhere in Germany because of the German-sounding names, the sign in the hospital that reads "verboten" ("forbidden" in English,) and the policemen's uniforms. Regardless, the movie wasn't meant to be accurate, Megara is the name of Hercules' "wife", not one of the three gorgon sisters. Still it is a prety good movie, though I didn't enjoy it as much as "The Scream of Fear" which was the other movie featured on my DVD.
shareIt was established at the start that the story's locale was Serbia, which is juxtaposed to Greece. The Gorgon did definitely move for some reason from Greece.
The verboten sign was probably a money saving measure. The producers may even know that most people aren't very good at geography.
It was set in Germany:
In the rural German village of Vandorf, seven murders have been committed within the past five years,...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gorgon
It wasn't the British countryside- it was Germany.
shareI don't know if the country is specified but somewhere in Middle Europe is usually given for the setting of the film. But another question I want to throw in is this. Was Megaera a Gorgon in Greek Mythology? Usually Megaera is given as on of the three Furies. She was the fury that incited jealousy in people. I don't think the Furies and Gorgons were interchangeable. I've named the usual given names of the Gorgons and Furies below:-
GORGONS: Medusa, Stheno, Euryale
FURIES: Megaera, Tisiphone, Alecto
It's supposed to be Germany. Which is why all the signs were in English.
You're right about the names of the Gorgons. I have no idea why they fudged the name, but for that matter she was missing her wings and if I recall correctly people who saw a Gorgon were supposed to be turned to stone on the spot, frozen, not have time to write letters and stumble around. Let's just say the filmmakers weren't worried about accuracy. But it was good cheesy fun.
"Lars, get some tools!"
Re the names of the Gorgons. I always wonder if Hammer took the name of Megaera from the original story by J. Llewelyn Devine. I've never been able to read it as yet. Hammer loved taking liberties but the film is great fun as you say.
shareYou're probably right re: Devine's story. Either because he had his mythology confused, or he just liked the name Megaera better. :) But I would love to read the original story. If you ever track it down I hope you'll come back here and share it!
"Lars, get some tools!"
Re Devine's original story. I shall certainly come back and share it with you if I do track it down. I admit that the name of Megaera does have a real mystical ring to it. So maybe the author did prefer it for artistic license.
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