Welcome back to Dark Corners Streaming.
1988’s The Lair of the White Worm, which you can stream on Shudder,
is simultaneously all you would expect from its controversial director Ken Russell,
while also being somewhat atypical.
#Now worm got fat and gross and grew an awful size#
#With great big teeth and a great big mouth and great big goggle eyes.#
Adapted, exceedingly loosely, from Bram Stoker’s novel
the story follows Peter Capaldi’s archaeologist, Angus who discovers a curious skull that leads him into a local legend.
‘Haven’t you heard of the famous D’Ampton Worm before?’
of a giant serpent killed by Hugh Grant’s ancestor.
And the film is loaded with imagery of snakes and worms from the obvious
'Down you go.'
to the subtle...
Even the food has been knowingly chosen.
'Remember that.'
The film is comprehensively stolen by Amanda Donohoe who gives a suitably serpentine performance as Lady Sylvia Marsh,
a snake demon priestess, who lives next door to Grant,
'Good evening, what can I do for you?'
and whether sacrificing an unsuspecting boy scout.
'Actually, I'm doing you a favour'
or channelling a more famous serpent.
‘Oh Eve, I feel so silly’
– no accident that character’s called Eve –
she seems to be having the time of her life.
‘My dear man, you should know that I change my car as often as a snake sheds its skin’
In case it’s not clear, the film is a comedy, something not everyone realises going in
– and sometimes not coming out –
which has affected its reputation.
Russell seems to delight in alternating the crisp dialogue of the English aristocracy.
‘The legend of the D’Ampton worm terrifies me and I could never have come to your party in a million years’
with its less restrained imagery.
In its excesses, this certainly has the hallmarks of its director,
indeed it does sometimes seem to be namechecking his classics from The Devils to Women in Love.
And yet it doesn’t really seem to have much to say for itself, which certainly doesn’t stop it from being an entertaining film,
but is unusual for Russell, because there’s typically something behind the madness.
I don’t think anyone would put this up there with Russell’s best but it is his perhaps most accessible,
it even has comedy policemen.
'I'm having my dinner'
‘I don’t care if you are in the middle of supper’
‘But me takeaway’ll be ruined’
'Fuck the Kenny Cold Turkey and get on your bike.'
the unseen policeman on the other end of the line is Russell himself, clearly having fun.
And fun is the key word here, for all the horror, and I don’t think it short-changes, this is a romp.
Russell himself name-checked Oscar Wilde and you could see this as Wilde by way of Gothic horror.
It’s not perfect, the dialogue is sometimes thunderously clunky.
‘Still playing Happy Families at your gae?’
‘Not since we lost mum and dad no’
but the great thing about Russell is that even in his worst films – and he made some clangers –
there is always something to see.
Even when he is doing something like this that, for all its madness, does verge on the conventional,
it’s is never boring.
Just don’t take it seriously.
Thanks for watching. Russell is a divisive talent, on which side of the divide do you fall and where do you place The Lair of the White Worm in his cannon?
Let us know in the comments below