Maverick auteur Ken Russell followed-up his masterful Gothic (1986) with the hilariously bonkers The Lair Of The White Worm (1988). Russell freely adapted Bram Stoker’s source text, subverting the Gothic genre with his own psychosexual style. Russell lampoons the creature feature and constructs a wholly post-modern take on the British horror film.
Like so many of Russell’s films The Lair Of The White Worm is a film about national identity. The film pits Britain’s dual heritage of paganism and Christianity against each other in rural Derbyshire. The titular monster represents the pagan impulse and sexuality of Britain while the heroes of the film represent the modern, God fearing Britain. Each is caricatured and parodied, suggesting that neither in and of itself makes up the whole of British identity.
Russell paints British folklore as a garish spectacle worthy of the highly disposable videos made for MTV of the time. Russell reduces the traditions of British horror to their sexiest essentials. He creates a veritable cavalcade of provocative sexual imagery that makes the repressed sexuality of so many British horror films the text of the piece.
The Lair Of The White Worm is, after all, more comedy than horror. The film is full of campy performances and broad cinematographic gestures that constantly reiterate the pageantry of the piece. The unbridled, hyper-sexual performance of Amanda Donohoe is matched by Russell’s bombastic video effects that feel like Altered States (1980) run amok. Visually and performatively The Lair Of The White Worm is Russell unfiltered and at his most excessive as a stylist.
The Lair Of The White Worm is a formally playful film whose dramatic stakes don’t amount too much, especially when compared to Russell’s other films. For that reason The Lair Of The White Worm serves as an ideal gateway into the works of one of Britain’s greatest filmmakers. The Lair Of The White Worm isn’t Russell’s best work, but it is his most fun.
