The Lair of the White Worm is a 1988 supernatural horror comedy film written and directed by Ken Russell, and starring Amanda Donohoe, Hugh Grant, Catherine Oxenberg, and Peter Capaldi. Loosely based on the 1911 Bram Stoker novel of the same name, it follows the residents in and around a rural English manor that are tormented by an ancient priestess after the skull of a serpent that she worships is unearthed by an archaeologist.
A co-production between the United Kingdom and United States, the film was offered to Russell by the U.S. film studio Vestron Pictures, who had released his previous film, Gothic (1986). Russell, an admirer of Stoker, loosely adapted the screenplay from the source novel, and incorporated elements of the English folktale of the Lambton Worm. Filming took place at Shepperton Studios and in Wetton, Staffordshire, England in the spring of 1988.
After screening at several North American film festivals, The Lair of the White Worm was released theatrically by Vestron Pictures in New York City on 21 October 1988, and expanded to other U.S. cities over the following months. The film was a box-office flop, grossing $1.2 million, and received largely unfavorable responses from critics, though it later developed a cult following.
Plot
Angus Flint is a Scottish archaeology student excavating the site of a convent at the Derbyshire bed and breakfast run by the Trent sisters, Mary and Eve. He unearths an unusual skull which appears to be that of a large snake. Angus believes it may be connected to the local legend of the d'Ampton 'worm', a mythical snake-like creature from ages past said to have been slain in Stonerich Cavern by John d'Ampton, the ancestor of current Lord of the Manor, James d'Ampton.
When a pocket watch is discovered in Stonerich Cavern, James comes to believe that the d'Ampton worm may be more than a legend. The watch belonged to the Trent sisters' father, Joe Trent who disappeared a year earlier near Temple House, the stately home of the beautiful and seductive Lady Sylvia Marsh. The enigmatic Lady Sylvia is revealed to be in fact an immortal priestess to the ancient snake god, Dionin. She surreptitiously enters the bed and breakfast and steals the snake's skull, before baring fangs and spitting venom on a crucifix hanging on the wall. Eve later touches the crucifix, absorbing some of the venom, and is disturbed by a surreal vision involving a crucified Jesus being encircled by a giant serpent, while a group of surrounding nuns are raped by Roman soldiers.
Lady Sylvia picks up a young male hitchhiker named Kevin and brings him to Temple House, where she seduces him before paralyzing him with snake venom and killing him. James visits Temple House moments later and is invited in by Lady Sylvia for a drink. She tells James she is terrified of snakes and the d'Ampton worm legend. That night, James has a surreal nightmare in which he boards a plane with Eve and Lady Sylvia acting as stewardesses.
In the morning, James investigates the mountainous Stonerich Cavern near Temple House with Angus, Eve, and Mary. When Eve decides to return to the bed and breakfast before the others, she is abducted in the woods by Lady Sylvia, who intends to offer her as the latest in a long line of human sacrifices to her snake-god. James correctly theorises that a giant snake roams the caves which connect Temple House with Stonerich Cavern. Using large speakers, James projects Turkish music from his residence in an attempt to charm the serpent, invoking Lady Sylvia to visit him. Meanwhile, Angus and Mary break into Temple House, where they find Eve and Mary's mother, Dorothy, in a trancelike state. Dorothy suddenly bares fangs and bites Mary's neck before fleeing, triggering a hallucinatory vision in her, but Angus manages to extract the venom. Shortly after, Dorothy enters James's manor and bites the neck of his butler, Peters, before James cuts her in half with a sword.