It's been an odd holiday at Villa Grammatica. Family matters that are usually little more than exasperating have for some reason taken on a grandiose Ibsen-esque aura of gloom. My present-buying skills, usually limited only by my budget, this year suck like a fleet of Dysons. And I've been going car-shopping, which is nice because I can have a new car, and awful because that means going to car dealerships and handing someone who does not have my best interest at heart a large wad of money. The test-drive is tomorrow.
So when WolfSpider turned to me this weekend and said in speculative tones, "I see you have this movie called
Lair of the White Worm?..." It was as if a momentary light of joy illuminated the whole godforsaken holiday season. There's nothing like a really wretched Ken Russell concoction to take your mind off your troubles!
Based ever-so-very loosely on a story by Bram Stoker, with a dash of folklore in the form of the
Lambton Worm, the 1988
Lair is the story of a snake-god and his acolyte (Amanda Donohoe wearing not much) pitted against the forces of good, represented--I was going to say "Don't laugh"--by Hugh Grant, Catherine Oxenberg, and snake-charming music. As plot clearly isn't the film's strong suit, allow me to give the highlights in a sensational fashion I hope Mr. Russell would appreciate.
--Sexy archaeologists in wire-rimmed glasses! (Who apparently know both where to rent a mongoose in Northern England AND have the foresight to bring full Highland regalia and a set of bagpipes with him on a poorly-funded dig. Still, since he is played by Peter Capaldi, I forgive him.)
--Big skulls!
--Hallucinogenic venom! That induces...
--Nun-raping flashbacks!!
--A Boy Scout receiving a poisonous bite on the willy from a woman! (That he totally deserves, the little horndog!)
--Hugh Grant acting like he has deductive abilities!
--A dream sequence that would make Sigmund Freud put his own eyes out, Oedipus-like, with one of those cigars which is just a cigar!
--Virgins! Being tested with one of the 50 billion dildoes that seem to show up in this film!
--Actual "dun!" music every time the camera pans in on a vaguely snake-like object!...and there are A LOT of them. Even more than dildoes.
--Peter Capaldi producing the aforementioned mongoose from either 1)thin air or 2)the inside of his kilt! Youchie!
Which is, perversely, my attempt to point out that words cannot do the sheer bizarre, Freud-coated cheese factory that is
Lair of the White Worm any justice. A classic, of its kind.
Oh, and "!".
