What does it actually mean to be Gothic? For a lot of people, the word is shorthand for a vibe — black clothing, dark eyeliner, decorations of the macabre, maybe even a haunting violin concerto piece playing somewhere in the distance. And yes, that’s part of it as the Gothic practically invented the aesthetic.
But Gothic literature set the stage for the way we truly define Gothic. It represents a major turn in 18th-century fiction, blending the sublime and the terrifying to examine humanity’s deepest fears and desires. Writers like Oscar Wilde, Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe, Edgar Allan Poe, and Mary Shelley used their writing to explore what happens when beauty decays and the existentialism of human existence causes the past to intrude upon the present. The pages of these novels create a tense, claustrophobic atmosphere, with plots frequently revolving around vengeful pursuits, captivity, and even murder. The terrifying events of the stories depicted usually act as metaphors for deeper psychological struggles or societal tensions.
Gothic romance, meanwhile, takes the known characteristics of the Gothic and combines it with the drama of love. Led by the movement of female Gothic literature (a subgenre of Gothic that allowed women’s societal and sexual desires to be central to the story), Gothic romance became a popular movement in the late 19th century and experienced a revival in the mid-20th century after the publication of Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca in 1938. These stories are defined by the intertwining of love and dread, where passion becomes a catalyst for doom rather than comfort. In Gothic romance, love is rarely safe or simple; it is a force that drives characters to obsession, to transgression, and, oftentimes, to self-destruction. The emotional stakes are as high as the lightning-struck cliffs and shadowed manors where these tales unfold.
As technology evolved, the Gothic evolved with it, going from the pages of novels to our screens. Film and television have become the new haunted houses of Gothic storytelling, where shadowed hallways, forbidden desires, and doomed romances play out with elaborate set designs, swoon-worthy costuming, and actors that embody the emotional horror love can be. From the fog-drenched woods of Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow to the decadent, blood-soaked passions of Penny Dreadful, Gothic romance has never ceased to exist — it has only gained a new medium.
Whether flickering on a screen or printed on a page, Gothic romance continues to thrive. And at the heart of these stories are the couples whose love is as intense and unforgettable as the stories they exist within. Below is a selection of Gothic romance couples, each one a perfect embodiment of the genre’s dark allure. From obsessive passions to doomed desires, these are the pairs who make the Gothic heart beat fastest.
This list isn’t ranked, but if it were ranked, I know who would take the number one spot — but I’ll keep that close to the chest for now. Instead, let’s take a walk together through shadowy halls and across windswept moors, past ominously ajar doors and restless ghosts, to celebrate the best Gothic couples.
Mina Harker and Dracula — Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)
Winona Ryder and Sir Gary Oldman as Mina Harker and Dracula in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, 1992
Few Gothic romances are as intoxicatingly terrifying as the bond between Mina Harker and Dracula. In Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 adaptation, their connection is less a conventional love story and more a collision of desire, obsession, and the supernatural. Mina, the embodiment of intellect, purity, and emotional depth, finds herself drawn into Dracula’s world, a realm of eternal nights and monstrous grandeur. Dracula, in turn, is both predator and tragic romantic, torn between his insatiable hunger and the rare, human tenderness he glimpses in Mina.
What makes this pairing Gothic is the tension between attraction and danger. Every intimate moment carries with it a sense of mortality. Every stolen glance hints at possession and peril. Coppola heightens this through opulent visuals — velvet draperies, candlelit chambers, and the sweeping Carpathian landscapes — which mirror the emotional extremes of the couple’s connection. Mina’s courage makes her more than a passive victim as well, and her love and fear intermingle, creating a suspenseful and emotionally charged dynamic that keeps the audience perpetually on edge.
Mina and Dracula embody the dark allure of Gothic romance: love that is irresistible yet destructive, a fascination with the forbidden, and a relationship that transforms both parties.
Persephone and Hades — Greek Mythology / Hadestown (2016)
Patrick Page and Amber Gray as Hades and Persephone for Hadestown on Broadway
Persephone and Hades offer a different type of Gothic romance, one that is steeped in myth and showcases the irresistible pull between the light and dark. In traditional Greek mythology, Persephone is abducted into the Underworld, yet her story is not one of simple victimhood. Hades, lord of the dead, is at once terrifying and magnetic, a ruler of the dark whose desire for Persephone blurs the line between domination and devotion. Their relationship embodies the Gothic fascination with danger as a catalyst for passion. Their union, in turn, reshapes the very rules of life and death.
Hadestown, the modern musical retelling, amplifies this Gothic tension through haunting lyrics, jazzy blues tones, and a vision of the Underworld that is both industrial and intimate. Persephone’s annual return to the surface marks the bittersweet oscillation between freedom and captivity, sunlight and darkness, hope and inevitability. Their romance is a study in opposites. It’s her vitality against his permanence and her longing against his control, yet their connection is undeniable, and, ultimately, devastating.
Persephone and Hades exemplify Gothic romance in the way their love embodies dualities, the greatest of which is life and death itself. The romance is simultaneously beautiful and perilous, reminding us that Gothic passion often comes at the price of safety.
Morticia and Gomez Addams — The Addams Family / Wednesday (2022-)
Anjelica Huston and Raul Julia as Morticia and Gomez Addams in The Addams Family (1991)
Few couples capture the playful yet darkly intense side of Gothic romance like Morticia and Gomez Addams. From the original cartoons and films to the recent Wednesday series, their love is both a parody and a celebration of Gothic extremes, namely through flirtation that borders on the theatrical and passion that is as intense as it is absurdly charming. Morticia, the cool, composed matriarch, exudes a quiet power and confidence that matches Gomez’s exuberant, obsessive adoration. Together, they are the perfect embodiment of a Gothic union where love is extravagant, slightly dangerous, and unapologetic.
Their conversations constantly feel like duels of wit and desire, and even the most mundane domestic tasks are elevated to wonderful and odd displays of affection. In this universe, death, decay, and the macabre are not threats, but love letters.
Morticia and Gomez remind us that Gothic romance doesn’t always have to be tragic. It can be joyful, eccentric, and wildly passionate, proving that darkness can heighten desire and that love in a Gothic world can be as playful as it is eternal.
Belle and the Beast — La Belle et la Bête (1946)
Jean Marais and Josette Day as the Beast and Belle in La Belle et la Bête (1946)
Jean Cocteau’s La Belle et la Bête is a more classic film showcasing the Gothic. Belle, radiant in her intelligence and kindness, enters a world both enchanting and terrifying, a world located within the walls of the Beast’s castle where every inch seems alive with mystery. The Beast himself is the embodiment of Gothic duality: monstrous in appearance yet capable of profound tenderness. Their relationship is a slow, aching dance between fear and fascination, where love requires courage, empathy, and a willingness to confront the darkness within another soul.
Their romance is Gothic in its very setting, flourishing in the castle’s liminal spaces where wonder and dread intertwine. The castle is both a prison and sanctuary, mirroring the tension between repulsion and attraction. Cocteau’s vision transforms it all as well, using surreal visuals, spectral light, and dreamlike architecture to intensify the emotional stakes.
Belle and the Beast capture the Gothic ideal that love is transformative, capable of redeeming darkness without erasing it.
Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester — Jane Eyre (1847)
Michael Fassbender and Mia Wasikowska as Mr. Rochester and Jane Eyre in Jane Eyre (2011)
Out of all of the Gothic romances, few are as psychologically and emotionally charged as the one between Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester. Charlotte Brontë’s novel is a masterclass in morality and suspense, set against the backdrop of Thornfield Hall. Jane, with her fierce intellect, integrity, and quiet courage, confronts a world dominated by power while Rochester, enigmatic and tormented, embodies the Gothic hero as a man whose past casts long — literal and figurative — shadows over his present.
What makes their romance quintessentially Gothic is the tension between societal constraints and forbidden desire. The walls of Thornfield conceal secrets so every encounter between the two pulses with both longing and uncertainty. The Gothic atmosphere of stormy landscapes and hidden rooms mirrors the characters’ inner struggles, showing that Jane and Rochester’s love is not easy. It is a love tested by deception and betrayal, yet it endures precisely because it confronts darkness rather than avoiding it.
Louis and Lestat — AMC’s Interview with the Vampire (2022-)
Jacob Anderson and Sam Reid as Louis de Pointe du Lac and Lestat de Lioncourt in AMC’s Interview with the Vampire, Season 1 Episode 7 (2022)
Louis and Lestat are perhaps one of the most modern embodiments of Gothic romance, blending eternal desire with the anguish of immortality. In AMC’s Interview with the Vampire, Louis is haunted by conscience, memory, and the fragility of life, while Lestat is a force of seduction and danger, a creature of eternal night who embodies both beauty and menace. Their love is a delicate dance of desire and dread, erotic and overwhelming with every glance and touch.
Much like Belle and the Beast, Louis and Lestat exist in a world that mirrors their emotional extremes, only the castle of shadow is now a townhouse in the French Quarter where nights stretch endlessly. Louis’ vulnerability and yearning echo Belle’s heart, while Lestat’s magnetic intensity and capacity for both cruelty and tenderness recall the Beast, making their connection as transformative as it is risky. They are mirrors of one another: Lestat illuminated by Louis’ human tenderness, Louis transformed by the haunting beauty of Lestat’s darkness, each (one day) learning to love what was once unbearable within themselves.
Their romance, like many Gothic romances before them, is built on contrasts: beauty and decay, intimacy and isolation, mortality and immortality. Louis and Lestat prove that Gothic romance is never safe, but it is intoxicating as it ultimately is about embracing fear and desire with the only person who makes embracing the darkness worthwhile.
Edith Cushing and Thomas Sharpe — Crimson Peak (2015)
Mia Wasikowska and Tom Hiddleston as Edith Cushing and Thomas Sharpe in Crimson Peak (2015)
In Guillermo del Toro’s Crimson Peak, Edith Cushing and Thomas Sharpe find love in the crimson-stained walls of their decaying home. Edith is luminous and spirited, a woman of curiosity who steps into a world of secrets and rot. Thomas is enigmatic and brooding, a man whose quiet charm is shadowed by tragedy and whose love is inseparable from danger.
Their love illuminates both vulnerability and obsession. Edith sees the warmth and humanity in Thomas despite the darkness surrounding him, while Thomas’ passion is heightened by Edith’s bravery and moral clarity. Yet this love is never safe: the crumbling grandeur of Allerdale Hall, haunted by spectral remnants of the past, mirrors the moral and emotional horror surrounding them. Gothic elements run deeper still in the shocking bond between Thomas and his sister Lucille, whose twisted, incestuous attachment underscores the story’s theme of corruption and the destructive weight of family secrets.
Tragedy ultimately defines Edith and Thomas’ tale. Love cannot shield them from betrayal or, most inescapable, death. They’re a reminder that Gothic romance is not always about fulfillment.
Annie and Elijah “Smoke” Moore — Sinners (2025)
Michael B. Jordan and Wunmi Mosaku as Elijah “Smoke” Moore and Annie in Sinners (2025)
Sinners (2025), directed by Ryan Coogler, is a haunting Southern Gothic tale that blends period drama, supernatural horror, and musical elements. Set in 1932 Mississippi, the film follows twin brothers Elijah “Smoke” and Elias “Stack” Moore as they return home to open a juke joint, only to instead confront the dark, otherworldly forces that threaten their community. The film’s mix of historical realism, folklore, and the supernatural creates a vivid, eerie world, one where love and desire is overshadowed by devastation for all.
Annie, a Hoodoo practitioner deeply connected to her home and community, and Smoke, the more solemn of the Moore twins, share a love marked by profound tragedy. The death of their infant casts a long shadow over their relationship, testing their bond again and again. Despite the grief, Annie remains a pillar of strength, using her spiritual gifts to protect those she loves. Smoke, though fiercely devoted, struggles with his own demons and guilt, often pushing Annie away in his desperate attempts to shield her.
Their romance is a striking embodiment of Gothic themes: love intertwined with sorrow, danger, and the supernatural. The film’s devastating conclusion of Smoke’s ultimate sacrifice and his reunion with Annie and their child in the afterlife underscores the enduring power of their bond and the haunting, eternal nature of love.
Christine and the Phantom — The Phantom of the Opera (1986 musical)
Emily Rossum and Gerard Butler as Christine and the Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera (2004)
In Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1986 musical, Christine Daaé, a young soprano of extraordinary talent, becomes the impossible object for obsession of the Phantom — a disfigured genius who lurks in the shadowed depths of the Paris Opera House. Their bond is a delicate tension of fear and desire, played out across candlelit corridors, hidden chambers, secret passageways, and echoing music that seduces as much as it terrifies.
Christine and the Phantom are an ever-enduring embodiment of Gothic duality: her innocence, artistry, and tenderness shining against his brilliance, passion, and the haunting deformities that mark both his body and soul. Their type of love is magnetic and tragic as she is drawn to his genius while recoiling from his darkness, and he is captivated by her purity even as jealousy and obsession consume him. In the opera house, every mask, every note, becomes a stage for their bond, transforming every twisted moment into an operatic Gothic spectacle both beautiful and unsettling.
Catherine and Heathcliff — Wuthering Heights (1847)
Kaya Scodelario and James Howson as Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights (2011)
Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff are perhaps the most infamous couple in Gothic literature, a tempest of passion and cruelty set against the bleak, windswept moors of Yorkshire. Their love is not tender or comforting, but all-consuming, destructive, and eternal, a force that shapes not only their own fates but those of everyone around them. Catherine’s wild spirit and Heathcliff’s brooding intensity mirror each other perfectly, yet their connection is as much a curse as it is a bond, defined by many factors, but none greater than societal constraint.
Their romance embodies the Gothic fascination with love and hate, with life and death. Heathcliff’s relentless obsession and Catherine’s unstable passions create a dynamic that is as horrifying as it is heartwrenching. The moors, the ghostly imagery, and the claustrophobic interiors of Wuthering Heights amplify every emotional beat, making the landscape itself a participant in their tragic story.
Ultimately their passion endures across centuries as a cautionary and exhilarating archetype: a love so intense it becomes inseparable from suffering and gloom.
The New Wuthering Heights Problem
And now we come to the newest trailer for the Emerald Fennell adaptation of Wuthering Heights coming out in 2026, and why it already looks like a disaster.
The most glaring issue, right off the bat, is the casting of Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff. Emily Brontë never gives Heathcliff a precise ethnic background, but she makes it abundantly clear that he is not white. He is repeatedly described in terms that mark him as racially “other.” Lockwood, a character that is Heathcliff’s tenant, calls him a “dark-skinned gypsy” (Wuthering Heights, 47). When Heathcliff first arrives at Wuthering Heights, the elder Mr. Linton speculates, “Oho! I declare he is that strange acquisition my late neighbour made, in his journey to Liverpool — a little Lascar or an American or Spanish castaway” (Wuthering Heights, 91). A “lascar” was a term used in the 19th century for sailors from India or Southeast Asia, and the word usage signals to readers that Heathcliff is foreign, racially ambiguous, and very likely not white.
Nelly Dean, one of the main narrators of the story, deepens the mystery: she imagines Heathcliff’s father could be “an Emperor in China” and his mother “an Indian queen” (Wuthering Heights, 98). Brontë layers him with darkness and otherness, ensuring he is perceived as an intruder to both the Earnshaw and Linton households.
Literary scholars have picked up on this for generations. Dr. Reginald Watson, in his essay “Images of Blackness in the Works of Charlotte and Emily Brontë,” argues that while Emily Brontë does not explicitly call Heathcliff “Black,” the language surrounding him leaves little doubt that he is meant to stand as an outsider marked by race:
“Can it be truly said that Heathcliff is a black man? What is the solid proof? Well, as with the Joe Christmas character, Heathcliff’s racial identity is ambiguous, but just the slightest hint of such ancestry is enough to lead to alienation and isolation…With the constant ‘dark’ imagery used in relation to Heathcliff, it becomes apparent that there are many ‘absences’ or ‘silences’ in regards to race…In her introduction to Wuthering Heights, even Charlotte [Brontë] hints that Heathcliff is not only ‘foreign’ but may be of African or black heritage as well. For example, she says that ‘Heathcliff, indeed, stands unredeemed; never once swerving in his arrow-straight course to perdition, from the time when [he was] the little black-haired, swarthy thing, as dark as if it came from the devil.’”
Casting Heathcliff as a white man fundamentally erases a central aspect of his identity: his racial and social otherness. His ambiguous ethnicity and outsider status are critical to the story, informing both the prejudice he faces and the intensity of his relationships. By removing this, the character is flattened into merely another brooding, Byronic hero — a familiar Gothic archetype — rather than the radical and marginalized figure Brontë crafted. The 2011, Andrea Arnold’s adaptation recognized the importance of this otherness, casting James Howson, a Black actor, as Heathcliff and thereby honoring the character’s outsider identity and the societal forces that shape his tragic arc. In contrast, Elordi in the same role feels like a regression, prioritizing a more visually conventional casting that whitewashes Heathcliff and undermines the subversive, socially charged elements that made the original story so powerful.
And if casting weren’t enough of an insult to Brontë’s original vision, the marketing only compounds the problem. The trailer that was released September 3, 2025 sets the story to Charli XCX’s upbeat “Everything Is Romantic” and rapidly cuts between moments of all-consuming, physical desire between Catherine (Margot Robbie) and Jacob Elordi’s Heathcliff. This framing emphasizes sensuality over psychological depth, transforming Heathcliff’s complex, often brutal emotional self into a shallow figure defined by lust. Even more troubling, the trailer highlights Catherine’s relationship with Edgar, seemingly reducing Heathcliff’s torment and fury to the familiar tropes of a jealous boyfriend rather than the vengeful, socially marginalized force Brontë created. Fans and literary critics have already expressed frustration that this adaptation risks turning one of the most famous and intricate Gothic novels into a glossy, CW-style love triangle, erasing the moral ambiguity, social critique, and raw intensity that define the original story.
Casting director Kharmel Cochrane didn’t help matters either. In April, she told Deadline that there would “definitely be some English Lit fans that are not going to be happy” with Fennell’s interpretation, adding, “You really don’t need to be accurate. It’s just a book. That is not based on real life. It’s all art.” But this dismissal underscores the inherent problem itself. Wuthering Heights may be “just a book,” but it is also one of the most studied works in Gothic literature, a text that interrogates otherness, obsession, and social cruelty. By erasing Heathcliff’s racial ambiguity, this adaptation sterilizes one of Brontë’s most powerful tools for exploring these themes.
Perhaps I could give the marketing some leeway as trailers are designed to grab attention and can be intentionally misleading. But no clever editing or pop soundtrack can fix the deeper problem which is that Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff fundamentally misunderstands the character. Casting him as a conventionally handsome white actor cannot be glossed over, and no amount of trailer magic can make it feel authentic.
Sure, at the end of the day, Wuthering Heights is “just a book.” And Frankenstein is just a science project. And Dracula is just a guy with a strange diet. If you miss the point that badly, maybe Wuthering Heights isn’t the novel you should be adapting. Because Catherine and Heathcliff’s Gothic romance deserves better.
Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights. Penguin Classics, 2012.
Watson, Reginald. “IMAGES OF BLACKNESS IN THE WORKS OF CHARLOTTE AND EMILY BRONTË.” CLA Journal, vol. 44, no. 4, 2001, pp. 451–70. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/44325077. Accessed 8 Sept. 2025.
iHorror Newsletter
Sign up for the FREE weekly iHorror Newsletter—your go-to for the latest horror news, updates, and exclusive offers!
Thank you!
You have successfully joined our subscriber list.
