Lair of the white worml movie movie#

Stoker created a rather ineffectual villain it’s the villainess who interested me more, the priestess who caters to the dietary needs of the worm.

Russell says he took 'the spine of the novel and used that as the film's backbone, and that is the snake-worshipping cult. Russell used the song ' The Lambton Worm' in the film. I consider it to be more of a whodunnit thriller in one respect- or more precisely, a what-dunnit.' The director thought 'the term 'horror movie' covered a whole strata of possibilities' and he thought Lair, 'while it certainly has plenty of horror elements to it. Instead of bats, it has a snake, and instead of a man, a woman.' Russell said 'It's very similar to Dracula, but instead of being gothic, it's a very English story. It seems potentially more imaginative than Dracula, yet falls far short of itself in terms of credibility.” Unfortunately, his faculties had given way, and he couldn’t realize his imagination. He added that 'Stoker tried to write something beyond what he'd already written in Dracula. What I did find was something else that took its place, in a sense, and that was for once you didn't have to go to Transylvania for the terror, it happened up the road in Derbyshire.' Dracula is a masterful novel: the psychological game the book plays is very interesting, and the Freudian elements are very deep, but those aspects are not present in Worm. Someone suggested the director read Lair of the White Worm which Stoker wrote shortly before his death. Russell was an admirer of Bram Stoker and had written an adaptation of Dracula that had never been filmed. Vestron told their executive Dan Ireland, who was an admirer of Russell, that if the director could come up with a horror movie, they would finance his planned prequel to Women in Love, The Rainbow (eventually filmed in 1989).

Lair of the white worml movie movie#

The movie was made as part of a three-picture deal Russell had with Vestron Pictures following the success of Russell's Gothic (1986). This section may need to be rewritten to comply with Wikipedia's quality standards. When Lord D'Ampton invites him for a dinner celebration, Angus sinisterly smiles and accepts his offer. However, Lady Sylvia bites Angus before she dies, and Angus finds himself cursed to carry on the vampiric, snake-like condition, after he finds, to his shock, that the snake anti-venom he used was actually a new form of arthritis medication he got by mistake. Lady Sylvia steals the skull and abducts Eve Trent, intending to offer her as the latest in a long line of sacrifices to her snake-god.īefore Lady Sylvia can execute her evil plan, Angus and James rescue Eve and destroy both Lady Sylvia and the giant snake. As James correctly predicted, the giant snake roams the caves which connect Temple House with Stonerich Cavern.

The enigmatic Lady Sylvia is in fact an immortal priestess to the ancient snake god, Dionin. The watch belonged to the Trent sisters' father, who disappeared a year earlier near Temple House, the stately home of the beautiful and seductive Lady Sylvia Marsh ( Amanda Donohoe). When a pocket watch is discovered in Stonerich Cavern, James comes to believe that the d'Ampton worm may be more than a legend. 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 ( Hugh Grant). He unearths an unusual skull which appears to be that of a large snake.

Angus Flint ( Peter Capaldi) is a Scottish archaeology student excavating the site of a convent at the Derbyshire bed and breakfast run by the Trent sisters, Mary ( Sammi Davis) and Eve ( Catherine Oxenberg).