Greene Screene: The Lair of the White Worm

Now Showing on The Greene Screene: The Lair of the White Worm (1988)

The Lair of the White Worm is a deliciously sacrilegious adaptation of Bram Stoker’s 1911 novel of the same name.

Here’s the pitch: Gawky Hugh Grant with his pre-celebrity unibrow and lustrous long-haired Peter Capaldi get caught in the nest of man-devouring worm woman Amanda Donohoe, delivering an arousing performance that had the wife and I dreaming of her wardrobe.

Director Ken Russell (The Devils) does his best Hammer horror impression while adding in as many snake phalluses as possible, which will never not be appreciated by this viewer. Throw in a Scottish folk song about the titular D’Ampton worm and some dreamy over-the-top surrealism (Hugh Grant literally walks into a painting inciting a satanic pornographic dream sequence), and you won’t have to wonder for too long why Roger Ebert hated this movie, and why it absolutely needs to be on your Halloween watch list.

Now streaming on Amazon Prime.