Lair of the White Worm (1988)

The Lair of the White Worm is an incredibly hard film to classify. It covers just about every genre as it slithers to an incredibly tongue-in-cheek climax. I would place The Lair of the White Worm into the horror genre, because that seems to be the overlying theme, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a lot else going on underneath the surface. Ken Russell (director of the criminally overlooked The Devils) takes Bram Stoker’s classic novel, and gives it a modern touch-up, bringing the horrors of the White Worm into the present day. Because Ken Russell made the film, viewers can expect ridiculously over-the-top scenes with a sprinkling of dark humor and some intense violence; but it all looks beautiful.

Rating:

Angus Flint (Peter Capaldi) is excavating in a small town, and has discovered a massive skull and fragments of a body. He is staying at a boarding house owned by two sisters, Eve and Mary Trent. A neighbor of the sisters Lord James D’Ampton (Hugh Grant before he became ridiculously typecast as a romantic comedy lead), a noble is throwing a party to celebrate the anniversary of his family slaying a beast that terrorized the nearby lands. But, in a local mansion Lady Sylvia Marsh (the beautiful Amanda Donohoe) has moved back in, and things are not what they seem. Got all that? I know it’s confusing, but it’s really not that bad. The short of it is that Lord James believes the White Worm is back, and it’s up to him to kill it again. So, he takes it upon himself to fix the problem. But, he cannot protect the entire town and soon the locals are drawn into the deception of Lady Sylvia.

I went into Lair of the White Worm not knowing much about it. In fact, I didn’t even know Hugh Grant was in it and his face is plastered on the DVD cover. What I did know, I took from The Devils (by Ken Russell as well) so I knew I would not be bored. And boy was I right. The story moves along very nicely. As the film progresses the story slips further and further from reality, and it’s told in a masterful way. Russell starts off the film completely based in reality. The only thing out of sorts is a massive skull, which clearly doesn’t belong to any creature I’ve ever seen. To show premonitions of what the film is leading up to, dreams are used, instead of flash cuts, and I think that makes Lair work so much better. One of the sisters is knocked into a dream after touching poison left on a cross by Lady Sylvia, and the sequence that follows could best be described as every Catholic’s worst nightmare. Christ is being attacked on the cross by the white worm. Nuns are being raped by military soldiers. Lady Sylvia wears a dildo made of a steeple from a church. Everything that would be considered proper is thrown out the window, and it sets up some really nice foreshadowing.

Lair of the White Worm is downright disturbing, but the humor sprinkled throughout keeps things from being too serious. A perfect mix of horror and comedy is shown when Lady Sylvia picks up an underage local boy scout and offers to bring him back to her place for dinner and to dry off. We all know where this is heading and the banter really works, as it’s full of double meanings:

Kevin: I’m not really into headbanging.

Lady Sylvia Marsh: Are you into any kind of banging?

Not really subtle, but it sets up the rest of the scene as they arrive back at her house. She begins to seduce him (remember, he’s a boy scout and very underage), but things won’t be turning out the way he’d hoped. It’s a twisted scene that shows just how far Russell will go to push the envelope.

The cast is excellent. I mean you really can’t expect anything less than to be completely entertained by Hugh Grant. The guy is a genius, and I wish we could see more films with him acting like this instead of the usual love connections he’s been in recently. Catherine Oxenberg and Sammi Davis – not the singer- as the two sisters are great and Peter Capaldi plays the archeologist with zest. But, the stand out for this film really belongs to Amanda Donohoe as the slithery Lady Silvia Marsh. She’s creepy, deadly and sexy as hell all at once. I would have no problem dying with her sitting next to me dressed the way she was. The only problems I had with the film was at some points it felt as if it dragged a few times, but that was usually remedied by a hallucinatory dream or a quick-witted patch of dialogue that got the film back on track. Also, sometimes it just got a little bit on the tedious side.

Overall, Lair of the White Worm is a truly twisted film, from a filmmaker that should have more recognition then he currently receives. I, for one, will be rewatching this film when I can get a breath. The White Worm itself is incredibly cheesy, but in the overall world of the film, it fits perfectly and creates enough tension to throw off any doubt left by the open-ended climax.