Lady Sylvia is smarter than the bumbling policeman who willingly walks into her lair for help with, ironically, a snake bite. “ the one making underground cracks all the time.”Īllowing a character to reveal their sense of humor is also a means of revealing their intelligence. “The script’s peppered with little witticisms and in-jokes, nods to the audience to bring them in and have a bit of fun,” Russell said in the Blu-ray commentary, admiring his lithe, alluring villain. It is Lady Sylvia who’s given the slickest lines and asides. But Russell, as always, was more energized by evil, and evil is rewarded.

Russell could have focused the story more centrally on local nobleman Lord James D’Ampton (Hugh Grant), whose ancestor-according to lore-slayed the D’Ampton Worm, a wily snake-like beast he will eventually have to slay himself. That’s primarily because Russell allowed the audience to follow this ancient-evil snake woman from one fangy quip to the next, while the hapless heroes of the film continually tumble into her traps, like high-art Looney Toons, all amidst periodic nightmare sequences of Roman soldiers raping nuns before a totem of evil. There’s a decision every genre director must make when plotting their films: how much should the audience know about the villain? How much should they identify with them? Ken Russell’s answer to that question for his adaptation of one of Bram Stoker’s more obscure folktales, The Lair of the White Worm, ended up birthing one of the most deliciously wicked cinematic villains of all-time, Lady Sylvia Marsh (Amanda Donohoe). Russell (who also scripted) enjoys himself with all kinds ofįetishistic images, from a naked Amanda Donohoe slithering around in green body paint, to a white bra- and panties-clad Catherine Oxenberg suspened over a pit as a sacrificial offering to the great white worm-snake-whose flickering tongue is, no doubt, firmly in his cheek.Classified is a regular column on genre by April Wolfe.Īmanda Donohoe in The Lair Of The White Worm (Ken Russell, 1988) Given a distinctly playful treatment by Russell, who crams some kind of phallic imagery into almost every frame, THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM is solid, campy fun-much more entertaining than any of the director's 'serious' films. Throw in handsome young aristocrat Lord James D'Ampton (Hugh Grant), and the mix is complete. White worm, which still exists in a warren of tunnels deep below the earth. Meanwhile, mysterious, sultry aristocrat Lady Sylvia Marsh (Amanda Donohoe) returns to her mansion and reveals herself to be a fanged, vampire-like creature who worships the giant Strangely, the skull Flint just discovered bears a distinct resemblance to paintings of the fabled worm.

The ancestor of a local lord is credited with having slain the evil worm, and each year there is a party celebrating Soon Flint learns of local legends regarding a giant white worm-snake creature that terrorized the area in ancient times. Run by sisters Eve and Mary Trent (Catherine Oxenberg, Sammi Davis), whose parents have recently disappeared, the house just happens to sit on a site that,Ĭenturies ago, was a convent during the Roman occupation. Updated and set in the Derbyshire region of modern-day England, the film begins as young ScottishĪrchaeologist Angus Flint (Peter Capaldi) uncovers an unidentifiable skull while digging up the garden of the inn where he is staying. After having a bash at Mary Shelley in 1987's disastrous GOTHIC, director Russell turned his feverish imagination loose on Bram Stoker in this very campy adaptation of Stoker's final novel.

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