While based on Bram Stoker’s 1911 novel, his final, The Lair of the White Worm is such a different beast in the meaty hands of British writer/director Ken Russell, the author would blush at the hard-R results, if not faint outright.

In a bravura turn, Amanda Donohoe (Liar Liar) slithers her way through this ribald tale of the reptilian threat as Lady Sylvia Marsh, a wealthy, seductive woman who returns to her English mansion soon after the skull of the village’s legendary D’Ampton Worm is excavated by visiting archaeologist Angus Flint (Peter Capaldi, aka TV’s 12th Doctor Who) at a nearly B&B.

It so happens that the quaint inn is built over the site of an ancient convent, and it so happens that Sssssssylvia is a snake woman who was part of it. Baring needle-sharp fangs and spitting hallucinogens when she needs to, she belongs to the cult that worshipped the giant worm. Now that its head has been unearthed, she just needs to sacrifice a virgin to resurrect the monster from its hidey hole; Eve (Catherine Oxenberg, TV’s Dynasty), girlfriend of Lord James D’Ampton (a baby-faced Hugh Grant, Cloud Atlas), looks to fit the bill.

Continuing in the sacrilegious tradition of his most controversial picture, The Devils, Russell is gleefully go-for-broke in this low-budget hot mess of high camp. It’s okay to laugh at it — clearly, that was his intent — but prepare to be taken aback by it as well. Triggered by a touch of Sylvia’s venom, scenes of psychedelic nightmares set out to shock with profane images of nuns being raped, Sylvia suggestively sucking a spear and poor Jesus Christ not just having to deal with being nailed to a cross, but the oversized serpent wrapping around him.

Subtlety was thankfully absent from Lair‘s call sheets. What little audiences it had didn’t know what to make of it, and many still don’t. For the rest of us, it’s a hoot and a half, fulfilling where Russell’s 1986 companion piece, Gothic, was fatuous, and even more insane than the filmmaker. —Rod Lott

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