People are voting emotionally.

Lack of good storyline.

hyped garbage

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Supposedly based on a novel by Bram Stoker, LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM is an exercise in high camp surrealism for maverick British director Ken Russell. Russell crafts a unique film that mixes a solid mystery narrative with some terribly crude symbolism, some outrageously bad taste moments, and more camp sequences than you can shake a stick at. Quality-wise it's very poor in places, but at the same time it's rather amusing and, dare I say it, fun.DR WHO star Peter Capaldi plays a youthful Scots archaeologist who digs up the skull of a god in somebody's back garden - as you do. Meanwhile, Hugh Grant is a splendidly upper class toff - what else? - whose ancestor was the chap who killed the Lambton worm. And then there's dangerous seductress Amanda Donohoe, having a ball as a femme fatale hiding a dark secret in the depths of her country pile.LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM certainly contains some unforgettable moments, most of them involving the moments when Donohoe's true form is revealed; the makeup appears to homage Barbara Steele's character in CURSE OF THE CRIMSON ALTAR. There are some fun special effects here, alongside THOSE unforgettable nightmare sequences which are the stand-out highlights for me. The ending is neatly achieved and there's a nice supporting role for character actor Paul Brooke playing the local copper. Truly this is a one-of-a-kind production that has to be seen to be believed.

When you watch this Ken Russell movie "The Lair Of The White Worm" you will know why he got the nickname Kinky Ken. Of all the Ken Russell directed movies that I have seen this is definitely the kinkiest of them all. There are dream sequences in this horror movie that border on the depraved, so much so that you wonder how it got past the censors. Maybe they had all gone out for a cup of coffee!. Like most Ken Russell films it is visually imaginative & fascinating viewing. Amanda Donahue plays a very sexy kind of Countess Dracula & she is just great fun to watch. We see her in all manner of kinky costumes & nudity. After she picks up a boy hitch-hiker she takes him to her home, baths him & then dispatches him with a love-bite. Hugh Grant plays an R.A.F. pilot neighbour who knocks on her door & is invited in. During drinks he innocently asks her if she has any children. "Only when there are no men around", she answers. I think you probably get the drift of all this by now. This is definitely a weirdo movie but nonetheless interesting viewing.

I still recall this film's local theatrical release but never got around to watching it until now (not even as a VHS rental), due to my personal phobia of snakes! Actually, I did acquire a copy of it some years ago sourced from the Artisan DVD and, subsequent to this satisfactory viewing, presently also got hold of Ken Russell's cheeky Audio Commentary (where he states that the garden of his home, where this was partly filmed, is crawling with snakes and also that, as a child, he had been "hypnotized" by an adder but was saved from certain death by his brother!) culled from a previous Pioneer edition! Although there are indeed reptiles involved – including the giant titular one – there is, thankfully, a curious restraint on display here on the part of the notoriously in-your-face director…so much so that it is often dismissed as a minor effort of his in some circles. Curiously enough, I have also seen it acclaimed as his "ultimate" achievement in others: maybe it was the fact that he was venturing once more into the realm of the fantastic (in almost a decade) and combining it with the erotic that instigated the hyperbole or perhaps merely that he was adapting for the screen a Bram Stoker property (only the third novel to receive this treatment but, unlike the others, just this once)! The film proved the first teaming of Amanda Donohoe and Sammi Davis who would be reunited as one pair of lovers in Russell's next film, THE RAINBOW (1989), that I watched earlier this month; here, however, the typically (and quite literally) vampish Donohoe is more interested in the latter's equally virginal sister Catherine Oxenberg (from TV's DYNASTY) – while she used to be a striking presence in that long-running soap opera, she is decidedly the weakest link in the cast that also includes a pre-stardom Hugh Grant and Peter Capaldi. At times, Stanislas Styrewicz's eerie electronic score was very reminiscent of the unnerving Bernard Parmegiani one for Walerian Borowcyk's DOCTEUR JEKYLL ET LES FEMMES (1981); the evocative cinematography of the English countryside, Gothic mansions and prehistoric caverns by Russell's regular lighting cameraman Dick Bush was another big plus – although the tackiness of the nightmare sequences (that look forward to the harshness of camcorder images!) were a bit jarring if effective nonetheless.The reptilian-cum-phallic imagery was unsurprisingly rampant – from Donohoe's car slithering out of nowhere to a hosepipe or a piece of rope suddenly springing into life, to the Concorde in Grant's nightmare (complete with his erectile pencil at the sight of a catfight between air hostesses Donohoe and Oxenberg!). Admittedly, the unnecessary twist ending was a bit lame but this was compensated for by a reprise of the worm's wittily catchy theme tune sung by a folk-rock band over the end titles; they had earlier performed it at Grant's annual 'beggars banquet' commemorating (with a shoddy re-enactment) his ancestor's heroic slaying of the mythical dragon (by the way, it is baffling how the script seems to think that dragons, worms and snakes are one and the same thing!). As I said, THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM was only Grant's fourth theatrical feature but, in a case of life imitating art, at one point his character is said to have been jailed (in an unsuccessful ploy to abduct the heroine)! Among the film's highlights are: Donohoe spewing venom on the crucifix; a vision of Christ on the Calvary cross being entangled by the white worm as Roman legionnaires are gleefully raping a host of nuns (including Oxenberg herself); Donohoe's bath-tub murder of a boyscout (following a game of "Snakes & Ladders"!); the girls' mother cut in half by Grant via his ancestral sword (incidentally, it was amusing to see the snake people like the former watching TV programmes about this form of reptile). However, the camp quotient is at its highest in Donohue's costumes and in a sequence depicting her slithering out of a snake-basket over to Grant's mansion to the stereophonic strains of a Turkish "snake charming" tune blasted over his sound system (even if Scottish Capaldi uses the traditional bagpipe just as effectively but, while 'afflicted' policeman Paul Burke answers the 'call' and is eventually disabled by a graphic piercing right through his left eye, Donohue has cleverly put ear-plugs in advance and she also swiftly eliminates the threat of a mongoose, reputed to be the snake's deadly enemy!); the climactic confrontation in the cavern with a naked, blue-painted and snake-dildo-sporting Donohoe attempting to assault a tied Oxenberg before the White Worm makes its untimely appearance (the sacrificial victim it receives is not quite the one that was intended, with Capaldi then resorting to a hand-grenade in the mouth to put the monster to rest). Apart from the two female leads, of Russell's stock company, Christopher Gable (as the girls' missing father – in fact, he turns up only in photos and in Grant's nightmare!) and Stratford Johns (as Grant's butler who, asked about the whereabouts of the all-important snake-charming tune, helpfully suggests that his master try the B-side of a disc boasting "belly-dance music") also put in an appearance.

Lair of the White Worm, The (1988) ** (out of 4)Roger Ebert's review of this film perfectly summed everything up when he said that this is the type of film you'd expect to see someone like Roger Corman making back in the 50s or 60s. When someone sees the name Ken Russell they expect a lot more than what's actually on display here. The film tells the story of an archaeologist who finds a odd skull buried in his backyard. With the help of three friends (one played by Hugh Grant) they try to find out the mystery behind it and soon they run into Lady Sylvia Marsh (Amanda Donohoe), a vampire-like creature. There's a lot to admire about this film but at the same time you have to wonder why someone like Russell would be doing a picture like this and especially in 1988 when it was mainly slasher movies being made. Movies like this here dead twenty-years earlier so how this got the green light is beyond me. With that said, the director certainly brings his style to the production and on this level it works. We get the typical strange images, bizarre dream sequences and some great cinematography as well as a good atmosphere. All of this keeps things moving very well and the cast is also a plus. Grant gets to show off a few good jokes and Peter Capaldi and Catherine Oxenberg are fun to watch as well. The real standout is Donohoe who is magnificent as the female creature with a lust for blood. She's incredibly sexy in the role but she also gets to show off some acting talent as she perfectly brings to life the evilness of the creature as well as showing the thing to be smart as well. The biggest problem with the movie is that we've seen this type of thing countless times before. This movie is in a pretty hard spot as horror fans are going to be turned off by the art-house like film-making and I'm sure art fans are going to be disappointed in what's basically just a "B" horror film. The genre and Russell would seem like a strange mix and they are.