The Gorgon is a 1964 British horror film directed by Terence Fisher for Hammer Films. It stars Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Richard Pasco and Barbara Shelley.
Plot
Germany 1910: The village of Vandorf has suffered seven horrific murders in five years. In each case, the unfortunate victim has been turned to stone.
In the old millhouse on the edge of the forest, Sascha Cass tells her artist boyfriend Bruno Heitz she is carrying his child. Wanting to stand up to his obligations, Bruno races off into the night to see Sascha's father despite her pleas for him not to go. She races after him, but soon loses him in the dark forest. There, amongst the dark shadows, something catches her attention. She looks into the face of something hideous and screams. Raising her head once more, she looks upon the horror and screams again before dying. Upon examination of the body, Dr. Namaroff, a local brain specialist at the Vandorf Medical Institution, discovers the body has turned to stone. Suspicion immediately falls onto Bruno, who is missing, but he is found hanged in the forest by a police search party. An incompetent inquest decides it is a case of murder and suicide and Dr. Namaroff doesn't reveal the condition of Cass' corpse.
The villagers, feeling robbed of any vengeance, attack Bruno's father, Professor Jules Heitz. The local Police warn the Professor to leave the village, but he refuses to go until his son's name is cleared. He seeks help from Dr. Namaroff. Heitz knows that a conspiracy of silence has been set up and that the villagers do not believe the true cause. Professor Heitz believes the murders are the result of something unhuman and hideous from Ancient Mythology. Its spirit haunts the Castle Borski; its name is Megeara, a Gorgon, a creature whose horrible face can turn human skin to stone. On hearing Hertz's belief, Namaroff immediately terminates their discussion.
Professor Heitz contacts his good friend Professor Meister of Leipzig University, who is also his son Paul's tutor. Paul immediately leaves to see his father. That night, Professor Heitz is drawn to Borski Castle by a strange calling sound. There, amongst the shadows, he looks upon something horrible; the face of Megeara the Gorgon. He manages to stagger back to the millhouse, and there, whilst slowly turning to stone, outlines a letter to his son Paul telling him of the horror that haunts Vandorf. His final words ‘I am turning to stone.’ Paul arrives, and learning the sad news of his father's death, goes to see Namaroff. He is rudely dismissed when he asks if there is any link with the supernatural his father wrote of in his dying letter. Paul does however gain sympathy from Professor Namaroff's beautiful assistant Carla Hoffman, who visits him at the old millhouse and secretly reads the letter Professor Heitz had written. Later, she recites what she can remember of the letter to Namaroff at the Institution. They are interrupted by Ratoff, the warden who reports that Martha, a violent inmate, has escaped. Namaroff reveals to Carla that the spirit of Megeara the Gorgon does exist and occasionally takes over the body of an unfortunate human being.
That night, Paul is drawn outside the millhouse by a strange sound and there glimpses the horror of the Gorgon's reflection in the garden pool. He wakes five days later in the Medical Institution, aged by ten years. Determined to destroy the creature, Paul returns to the millhouse. Namaroff has Carla followed by Ratoff. That night, there is a full moon. Under the full moon, Paul visits the graveyard and exhumes his father's body and discovers it is solid stone. Carla silently watches him from the shadows. Emerging from her hiding place, she confides to Paul that Namaroff is in love with her and she is terrified of him. Paul tells Carla that he will take her away with him when the horror is ended. But Carla fears it will be too late by then.
Paul's tutor Professor Meister arrives at the millhouse to see him. Meanwhile, at the Medical Institution, Namaroff removes the brain from Martha, the dangerous inmate who died soon after recapture by Ratoff. Carla believed Martha to be the main suspect in the murders, but now she senses a far worse suspicion. Meister and Paul visit Inspector Kanof. They force him to tell them that Carla arrived in Vandorf as an amnesiac prior to the first murder.