10 Killer Horror Movies To Watch This Friday The 13th
4. The Lair Of The White Worm
The Lair Of The White Worm may not be the best (or best known) adaptation of a Bram Stoker story but it’s irresistible for the chance to see Peter Capaldi and Hugh Grant in a horror movie directed by Ken Russell.
When archaeology student Capaldi (who looks like he belongs on University Challenge) unearths a giant snake skull it’s promptly stolen by Amanda Donahue, a snake creature in human form whose venom causes her victims to have visions of a snake writhing across Christ’s body during the crucifixion. Fortunately for trash aficionados, she’s also an evil seductress with a penchant for gratuitous nudity and likes nothing better than luring young men to her house where she sacrifices them to the snake god she worships.
If that synopsis makes the film seem weird, ridiculous and borderline incoherent, that’s because it is (this is late period Ken Russell, after all). The possibilities for phallocentric humour aren’t exactly lost on the director, who equips Donahue with a phallic weapon and puts Grant in a dream sequence where his lust for an air stewardess is unsubtly suggested by him raising a suspiciously long pen.