Not long after I saw a 35mm screening of Ken Russell’s still
neglected and maligned masterwork The
Devils in Chicago, something strange and wonderful has been happening. The floodgates previously kept under tight
lock and key holding back what Spanish auteur Guillermo Del Toro dubbed ‘a
neglected artist’ seems to finally be opening wide. With the recent BFI UK blu-ray release of
Russell’s most celebrated classic Women
in Love hitting the shelves as well as his BBC television work also finally
making it’s high-definition home video debut and the recent Arrow Video release
of Crimes of Passion, one of the
director’s most entertaining and beloved farces from the 1980s is at long last
making it to blu-ray: The Lair of the
White Worm. Loosely based on Dracula author Bram Stoker’s novel of
the same name, the film was intended to be a silly headed creature feature
vampire flick with his usual blend of sex, nudity, over the top bombastic
images and old fashioned monster movie lore.
After the success of the director’s return to British cinema with Gothic, Vestron Studios offered to
finance Russell’s planned prequel to Women
in Love should he devise another horror movie. 
Featuring a less-than-well-known Hugh Grant in the leading
role, Amanda Donohoe as the sultry snakelike seductress and Catherine Oxenberg
as the prototypical damsel in distress, The
Lair of the White Worm is as close to a 1960s Hammer Horror flick with more
than a little bit of old fashioned carnality thrown in for good measure. We also get his usual penchant for subliminal
blasphemous psychedelic images of hysterical nuns and the demonic white worm
twining around crucifixes before going back to the campiest creature feature
rollicking since the ape-man detour in Altered
States. Up until this point, Russell’s
campy tongue-in-cheek romp made in the same spirit as say, The Boyfriend, is among the director’s most accessible films and
the least serious minded in his oeuvre has all but been only available on a
Pioneer Special Edition DVD.
With the recent announcement of Vestron Video’s partnership with Lionsgate to release a number of their titles on limited edition blu-ray, The Lair of the White Worm marks the company’s sixth release in the series and comes stacked with a wealth of extras including an audio commentary with Ken Russell and the director’s widow Lisi Russell, a special effects featurette and interviews with editor Peter Davies and actress Sammi Davis. Personally, I can’t wait for this to come out, slated for January 31st, 2017, and plan on preordering as soon as possible. For Ken Russell fans and die-hard horror fans of the 1980s, The Lair of the White Worm is an enormous gift for cinephiles eager to consume anything and everything that is Ken Russell cinema!
With the recent announcement of Vestron Video’s partnership with Lionsgate to release a number of their titles on limited edition blu-ray, The Lair of the White Worm marks the company’s sixth release in the series and comes stacked with a wealth of extras including an audio commentary with Ken Russell and the director’s widow Lisi Russell, a special effects featurette and interviews with editor Peter Davies and actress Sammi Davis. Personally, I can’t wait for this to come out, slated for January 31st, 2017, and plan on preordering as soon as possible. For Ken Russell fans and die-hard horror fans of the 1980s, The Lair of the White Worm is an enormous gift for cinephiles eager to consume anything and everything that is Ken Russell cinema!
- Andrew Kotwicki