First broadcast on Channel 4 in 1986, Zastrozzi was written and directed by champion of the avant-garde David Hopkins, and features riveting early screen roles for Tilda Swinton and Mark McGann.

This atmospheric four-part drama is a contemporary retelling of Percy Bysshe Shelley's chilling gothic horror novel, a precursor in image, character and theme to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. The original characters are transported from 19th-century Germany and Italy into present-day England in a vivid exploration of the wicked depths of human nature, and the failed frameworks of society, religion and romance.

England has been taken away from us by mucky profiteers. We've been sold out. England has been cashed in. Watch it, they'll have your dreams next. [Mike, can we have this script quote as part of the design somewhere on the back, as it makes the NYT quote on the front meaningful]

In a heady tale of revenge and obsession, the outlaw Zastrozzi (Geoff Francis), assisted by courtesan Matilda (Hilary Trott), abducts his half-brother Verezzi (McGann) and torments him into believing his lover Julia (Swinton) has been murdered. His campaign of vicious psychological abuse signals a grisly bloodbath of greed, envy, betrayal, retribution and eternal damnation.

An imaginative, provocative and timeless examination of demonic manipulation and soul-sapping vulnerability.