{"id":14251,"date":"2013-12-03T09:00:42","date_gmt":"2013-12-03T09:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/badreputation.org.uk\/?p=14251"},"modified":"2013-12-03T15:38:49","modified_gmt":"2013-12-03T15:38:49","slug":"guest-post-lady-sylvia-lair-white-worm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/badreputation.org.uk\/2013\/12\/03\/guest-post-lady-sylvia-lair-white-worm\/","title":{"rendered":"[Guest Post] In Praise of Snake Vampire Cultist Ladies"},"content":{"rendered":"
One thing to be aware of when watching any of Ken Russell\u2019s films is that you will spend at least three quarters of the running time saying to yourself, \u2018What THE HELL am I watching.\u2019<\/p>\n
Mr Russell\u2019s
The Lair of the White Worm<\/strong> (1988) is so bizarre
that… well, let\u2019s just take a look at the notes I
made the last time I watched it: <\/p>\n
\u2018How do you spot a snake vampire cultist lady?
She\u2019ll be playing snakes and ladders. In thigh high
boots.\u2019 <\/p>\n
\u2018Gratuitous historically inaccurate nun torture.\u2019
<\/p>\n
\u2018Where IS Peter Capaldi keeping that mongoose?\u2019
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
(Unfortunately, Bram Stoker\u2019s
The Lair of the White Worm<\/strong> is not a great read.
It\u2019s got potential \u2013 Lovecraftian horrors
stirring beneath the English countryside \u2013 but
it\u2019s clunky as hell. And contains so much sexism and
racism that it reads like an unsubtle parody of a
Victorian horror tale.) <\/p>\n
Peter Capaldi plays Angus, an archaeology student who
finds the skull of some kind of monster in the garden of
a B&B in Derbyshire. The B&B is run by two
sisters \u2013 Eve and Mary (Catherine Oxenberg and
Sammi Davis. Note the unsubtle choice of names) whose
mother has disappeared in mysterious circumstances.
<\/p>\n
Then Lord D\u2019Ampton (Hugh Grant) invites them to his
ancestral hall for an 80s folk\/rock party, where he
re-enacts the legendary tale of an ancestor of his, who
killed a giant worm (guess what colour it was.) that was
terrorising the village some centuries previously.
<\/p>\n
(The beast that his ancestor had the squabble with was
the D\u2019Ampton Worm. As in the Lambton Worm<\/a>. Both Stoker\u2019s
and Russell\u2019s version of \u2018White Worm\u2019
take place in Derbyshire and not Durham. There were a
lot of worm monsters about in the olden days,
apparently.)<\/p>\n
<\/a>This gets Angus wondering
\u2013 could his new-found skull have something to do
with the one in the tale? Lord D\u2019Ampton is
foppishly sceptical. And then Lady Sylvia slinks into
view. And spits venom on a crucifix. I haven\u2019t seen
Downton Abbey<\/strong> for ages, but I\u2019m pretty
sure that her TV namesake is not in the habit of doing
such things.<\/p>\n
What follows is an unsettling campfest. Lady Sylvia
does some horrible things (that poor boy scout) but
she\u2019s also horribly fascinating. I don\u2019t
know if she was meant to be a satire on the
\u2018sexy sex ladies who are EVIIILL\u2019 trope or
an unsubtle parody of 80s decadence (see Kate
Beaton\u2019s marvellous Dracula cartoon<\/a>
for a nice pisstake of how this trope came up in
Stoker\u2019s most famous tale). But either way Ms
Donohue looks to be really enjoying herself. <\/p>\n
Eve and Mary are sketchily drawn characters \u2013
it transpires that Eve is a virgin, which makes her
sacrifice fodder for the great big worm beast living
under Sylvia\u2019s mansion (paging Doctor Freud).
Lord D\u2019Ampton has some rude dreams and tries to
fix things with his super posh man skillz.
Eventually, Angus has to face vamped up Sylvia
alone. Yep, Peter Capaldi is the Final Girl<\/a>. <\/p>\n
He does a bit of snake charming with a kilt and a
set of bagpipes. And a mongoose. If anyone\u2019s
concerned that
Doctor Who<\/strong>-loving kids might come
across Malcolm Tucker\u2019s epic swears by
accident online, wait until they get a load of
this.<\/p>\n
Lair of the White Worm<\/strong> is basically
awesome trash. Or it\u2019s trash cinema
French kissing arthouse cinema down a dingy
alleyway. And sometimes that\u2019s what you
want.<\/p>\n
\n