{"id":13260,"date":"2019-11-30T22:29:53","date_gmt":"2019-12-01T03:29:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/?p=13260"},"modified":"2019-11-30T22:29:53","modified_gmt":"2019-12-01T03:29:53","slug":"lair-of-the-white-worm-1988-ken-russell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/archives\/13260","title":{"rendered":"Lair of the White Worm (1988, Ken Russell)"},"content":{"rendered":"

“To die so that the god may live is a privilege, Kevin”<\/p>\n

British dude casually finds some 1700-year-old coins in the backyard, and an elongated skull – I thought this was Hugh Grant for a while until the real Hugh Grant appears a couple minutes later and I realized I had no idea what Peter Capaldi looked like prior to The Thick of It<\/em>. They meet at a white worm party – with a white worm costume and a band playing a rowdy white worm folk song – along with the Trent sisters. Grant is out with Sammi Davis of Hope and Glory<\/em>, and her sister Eve is Catherine Oxenberg of the Yugoslavian royal family, who started her career playing princess Diana on a TV movie, and most recently appeared in Ratpocalypse<\/em> and Sharktopus vs. Whalewolf<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Our fearless foursome:<\/em>
\n<\/p>\n

Everyone is talking like they’re on a sitcom, but a few short minutes later, Lady Sylvia Marsh is introduced sucking on the leg of constable Ernie (Return of the Jedi<\/em>‘s rancor keeper) and the movie gets good ‘n’ crazy, and stays that way. It’s cool that Grant and Capaldi are here, but Amanda Donohoe is the movie. Looks like I can see her with Sammi Davis and Glenda Jackson in Russell’s The Rainbow<\/em>, and I probably should.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Lady Marsh takes a boy scout home and feeds him to the worm-god in her basement, and Eve is taken captive next. Sylvia is excessively horny during these scenes, while the others are eating damp sandwiches, searching for signs of the long-missing Trent parents. Grant gets the Stendhal Syndrome<\/a> and climbs inside a painting. Snake imagery abounds, the script is all entendres, and the visuals flit between ace makeup\/lighting and insane greenscreen dream-mayhem. Most horror filmmakers are content to make normal-looking movies with a few crazy visual bits – Russell isn’t happy unless the crazy bits completely overwhelm the normal stuff.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

After my second<\/a> reference this month to a christian order building atop pagan grounds, Grant steps up to his destiny, and plays snake-charming music on a PA system while the team attacks the castle with help from a worm-hunting mongoose. Mary is accosted by her undead mum, then by the possessed cop, but Capaldi saves the day with snake-luring bagpipes and drops a hand grenade down the worm-god’s throat. This plan obviously took some prep, but it’s also an emergency rescue mission, so was it necessary to change into the kilt?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

There’s an Oscar Wilde quote – Russell made a Wilde movie the same year. Grant appears here the year after starring in a James Ivory film, Capaldi five years after Local Hero<\/em>. Partly based on a Bram Stoker novel, partly on the legend of the Lambton Worm<\/a>, and I guess largely made up by Russell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“To die so that the god may live is a privilege, Kevin” British dude casually finds some 1700-year-old coins in the backyard, and an elongated skull – I thought this was Hugh Grant for a while until the real Hugh Grant appears a couple minutes later and I realized I had no idea what Peter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[357,2584,102,234,494,2583,603,424,503],"class_list":["post-13260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie","tag-1980s","tag-bagpipes","tag-britain","tag-compositing","tag-dreaming","tag-hugh-grant","tag-ken-russell","tag-nudity","tag-snakes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13260"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13301,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13260\/revisions\/13301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}