hen Lair of the White Worm opens,
Angus Flint has been happily excavating his landlady's backyard for some time, digging up coins dating back to the Roman occupation of England and the remains of a convent. His most important and perplexing discovery is that of a large skull, reptilian in appearance and large enough to belong to a dinosaur. Unfortunately for the archaeologist, the ages of other artifacts on his dig make that impossible.
Flint has barely begun to theorize about the skull's origins, though, when a series of disturbing events distract him. The boarding house where he is staying is run by two sisters, Mary and Eve Trent, whose parents vanished over a year before. Now a watch belonging to the sisters' father has turned up, triggering a new search. Finally, the skull itself vanishes before it can be examined, while Eve suffers from a horrifying vision of the old convent being overrun by debauched Roman soldiers.
At the same time, the town's most eligible bachelor, one Lord James D'Ampton, has begun to suspect the disappearances and the theft are related to the reappearance in town of Lady Sylvia Marsh, the owner of a property known as Temple House. Marsh's return coincides neatly with the discovery of the skull. As strange events proliferate in town and at the boarding house, James cannot avoid being reminded of the local dragonslayer legend. According to local myth, one of his own ancestors killed a monster years before, saving the town from a man-eating worm!
Snakes, sexuality and spelunking
Based on one of Bram Stoker's lesser-known novels, Lair of the White Worm has an understated beginning that quickly gives way to lurid drama, menacing sexuality and a host of strange deaths. Director Ken Russell (whose other SF work includes 1980's Altered States) plays up the phallic imagery implied by the movie's title, until it reaches an extent that is undeniably over the top.
As the worm-god's high priestess, Amanda Donohoe as Lady Sylvia Marsh offers a performance that is frightening and campy by turns. She is a predator in every sense of the word, threatening male and female victims alike, constantly trying—and usually succeeding—to evoke a serpentine presence from her distinctly human body. Another of the nostalgic delights offered by the film is a chance to see a young Hugh Grant strut his stuff as the young Lord James. The affable Grant's lightweight persona works to his advantage in the movie: James is a watered-down version of his forebears, a fellow with—or so it appears—little or no chance of bringing the monster down.
Lair of the White Worm's gore effects are relatively restrained, and its body count is low by the standards of other horror flicks. Its performances are earnest, and the cast mines the occasional moment of low-key excellence from a script that is often lackluster. What power the movie has derives from its pretense to a grim tone despite the fact that its visuals are becoming ever more outlandish with every scene. In the end, an Angus clad in full tartan is reduced to an attempt to charm the
snake-priestess with his bagpipes. By then, the only choice left to a viewer is to surrender ... to laughter.
