Ken Russell, famed British director responsible for such works as The Devils, Altered States, and Women in Love, for whatever reason, decided to drop this bomb based on Bram Stoker’s last novel by the same name.
Now, it is common knowledge that H. P. Lovecraft was influenced by Stoker to some extent but this film, instead of playing along the lines of the famed Dracula in its subtle lines of sexuality, instead bounces around like a demented, horny “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” on acid. For this, a plot summary is in order.
The film begins with a Scottish archaeologist by the name of Angus Flint (Peter Capaldi), who discovers an odd skull, which at first appears to be the head of an elongated cow. He is rushed off to a party by his two sisters, Mary and Eve (Sammi Davis and Catherine Oxenberg respectively) (can you smell the mythology brewing here?) just short of discovering a mosaic a few inches below the bony skull which would otherwise have potentially cut thirty minutes off the film. However, at the party he is met by the arrogant heir, Lord James D’Ampton (Hugh Grant), to a nearby estate which shares a property line with one Lady Sylvia Marsh (Amanda Donohoe), owner of the aptly named Temple House (predictable plot becoming less oblique . . . ), who has recently returned to her manor. While at the party D’Ampton discloses to Angus that he is the ancestor to the man who slew the famed D’Ampton Worm, a huge dragon-snake monstrosity of local legend. (He states this as Angus unknowingly eats a local delicacy–a bowl full of pickled worms. I was just waiting for Hugh Grant to say, “Ah, sorry ol’ chap, but you got a bit of the ol’ pickled W hangin’ off the lip there.”) Around the time that the Flints’ missing parents, whom the cast has been concerned with since their disappearance prior to the open of the film, are located in effigy via the father’s watch in a nearby cavern which, however coincidentally, is reminiscent to the painting hanging above D’Ampton’s mantle, Angus’s skull goes missing. We then are treated to Marsh seducing a boy scout after she sexually molests him and dispatches him via venomous bite to the penis (I kid you not) prior to the Flints, with D’Ampton in tow, going back into the cavern once the local search for the elder Flints has been called off. Predictably, once there, the four separate and Eve (who else?) is kidnapped by the now revealed snake goddess Marsh. Just after Marsh determines that Eve is a virgin after cynically denouncing the standardized “false god” of contemporary times, she takes Eve into the cavern, hence the “lair” of the title, in order to sacrifice the virgin to the “white worm” of lore. Now, to compound every possible in-joke in regards to reptiles, especially snakes, Marsh appears in blue body paint, complete with a monumental strap-on (I kid you not) and, the viewer is led to believe, is about to sacrifice Eve’s virginity with her bondage gear. But, alas, D’Ampton saves the day by leading his team of hired hands to smoke-out the cavern. Angus, having been bitten by Marsh after she found him in the lair (there was a lot of biting going on during the film–it was hard to keep track of it all), after having the forethought to injecting antivenom, awakens and pushes Marsh into the snake pit. She clings to a dangling Eve (all sacrificed virgins must be dangled I suppose) before Angus cuts Marsh’s hand off (flash forward to Dagon). Angus then tosses a grenade into the serpent’s mouth and all seems well (I know, grenades don’t bode well with myth and rituals but what can I say?). Angus then receives a phone call from the local hospital, the same one who prepared the antivenom for him, to inform him that they accidentally issued him arthritis medication (I kid you not). He then walks out to an awaiting D’Ampton, who tells the ol’ chap to “slither in” to his car and, as they drive off, the latter asks if Angus would like a bite. Indeed.
Oh, . . . I almost forgot–there’s an eye-gouging scene with the police chief straight out of Fulci for what it’s worth!
Less a Stoker than a poor rendition of Lovecraft, the work is a borderline vampire tale (the term is slung around a few times during the film). If you approach the film as if it were a Roger Corman flick you will be in the right frame of mind. In retrospect, it is a potentially fun piece which didn’t lean toward the “fun” enough for it to be considered a serious comedy (haphazard is more like it) but mistakenly takes itself seriously enough not be achieve being a decent horror movie. In short, fun but not that fun.
Trivia tidbit: The mouth of the white worm was constructed from the hood of a VW Beetle. I suppose we are thus to consider the VW police car seen in the film to be foreshadowing then, huh?
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
