Dir: Ken Russell
Star: Hugh Grant, Amanda Donohoe, Peter Capaldi, Sammi Davis

In the late 1980’s, Russell teamed up with Vestron to make a series of cheap quickies, of which Lair of the White Worm was the second, following on from Gothic, with Salome’s Last Dance and The Rainbow to follow. While the others have their Incredibly Bad merits – particularly Salome, which includes future cabinet minister Glenda Jackson as well as Wolf from Gladiators – it is to Lair that we must turn to see Russell’s loopiness taking flight in its most fully-fledged form.

However, there was a fair bit of loopiness inherent in the source material, Bram Stoker’s last novel. While Stoker wrote a lot of books, he’s best known for Dracula – largely because the rest are pretty dire. This is especially true towards the end of his life, when he was suffering from nephritis, and spent a lot of his time doped up to his eyeballs. Lair of the White Worm was written shortly before his death in 1912, and represents a compelling argument for euthanasia. It’s available via Project Gutenberg, should any reader wish to wade through all 55,000 words of it. I did, and would suggest a Shaun Hutson book instead. But who better to film a book written by a certifiable loony than Ken Russell? And fortunately, his version is a great deal more entertaining. He ties it to folklore by bringing in the Dampton Worm, a genuine legend, and addresses all his usual obsessions: religion (and nuns in particular), class, and so much sexual symbolism it seems that every other scene has a phallic object in it. Snakes, garden hoses, cigarette holders, E-type Jaguars, pens – no Freudian opportunity is passed up.

Read this way, the opening shot is of an enormous twat – and I don’t mean Hugh Grant. It’s a huge, vaginal cave, which our heroes (and heroines) will later penetrate, and sets the tone for the entire movie. Viewers should thus permit themselves a snigger when the name of the cinematographer comes up – Dick Bush. Under other circumstances, I’d think this was Ken having a larf, but it’s a real person, one of Russell’s regular cronies.

The film starts with the discovery of an ancient skull by archaelogist Angus Flint (Peter Capaldi), digging in front of the B&B run by orphaned sisters Mary and Eve Trent (Sammi Davis & Catherine Oxenburg – the latter with a delightful dubbed Derbyshire drawl). When this comes to the attention of local land-owner Lady Sylvia Marsh (Amanda Donohoe), she is keen to get her hands on it, being the immortal priestess of a pagan snake-worshipping cult dating back at least to Roman times, who tends a huge snake in tunnels below her manor, to which she feeds Boy Scouts. She is keen to get her hands (as well as a very pointy dildo – the second time in three Russell movies such a device appears) on the pure & innocent Eve, for the usual sacrificial purposes. Flint and the Trents must battle against Lady Sylvia and her venomous minions, ably assisted by another local land-owner, James Dampton (Hugh Grant).

There, that’s the plot out of the way, for most of the highlights are not to be found therein, but in the execution, such as the dream/hallucination sequences. Some of these are flashbacks to ancient times, with a convent (whose nuns include Linzi Drew) being desecrated by Roman soldiers, while a giant white snake mauls a crucified Christ-figure. These video sequences are classic 80’s pop-promo stuff, redefining “lurid” with extreme colours and gratuitous visial effects. Slightly more subtle – albeit in style, rather than content – is James Dampton’s dream sequence from which entire conventions of psychologists could be sourced. This sees him boarding Concorde, where he is tied up and watches Amanda Donohoe and Catherine Oxenburg roll around the floor, cat-fighting. Oh, and they’re both dressed as air-hostesses. Here somehow seems an appropriate point to mention that you’re watching neo-royalty: Oxenburg’s mother is Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia, second cousin to Prince Charles. [Appropriately enough, Oxenburg has played Princess Di on not one, but two occasions.]

The dialogue is wonderfully ripe, littered with the sort of double-entendres beloved of the Carry On series. Some choice examples:
James Dampton: “I love Mr.Flint’s hole – it’s rather fascinating”
Lady Sylvia: “Are you into any sort of banging?”
Eve: “Me spotted dick!”
But there are also plenty of non-sexual lines to appreciate:
Lady Sylvia: “That sort of music freaks me out!”
James Dampton: “I think we probably have another reptile loose on the premises.”
Mary: “She doesn’t go to church or any of that stuff – but she’s quite religious.”
James Dampton: “Put your bicycle clips on, Peters – I’m expecting company.”
and my favourite exchange of all:
Angus: “Still playing happy families at your age?”
Mary: “Not since we lost Mam and Dad, no…”

The main saving grace is that everyone realises – to borrow a line from Russell favourite Oscar Wilde – the importance of being earnest, with material of this sort. The slightest snigger and it would topple over from trash into farce; no-one slips up here at all, even Hugh Grant who delivers what Russell reckons is the best performance of his career, and I’m inclined to agree. However, it’s Donohoe who is the key to the film, and is totally brilliant, especially when spitting out lines like “Poor little virgins, masturbating in the dark.” Do you want extra relish with that, Amanda?

This helps paper over some gaping holes in the script, which leaves a lot of things unexplained. For example, Angus manages to rustle up, in short order, not just antivenin, but also a hand-grenade and a mongoose – which is not (as far as I know) a commonly-encountered animal in rural Derbyshire. Up until the final monster, the effects are pretty good, with dismemberments, fangs and death-by-sundials all coming across well. However, when we get to see the worm, we wish we hadn’t: the front of a Volkswagen was used as the frame for it, and to be honest, they could have left it at that and the result would have been every bit as terrifying.

The main difficulty is trying to work out, how much it is all intended as a joke. That it’s a spoof is obvious, yet when Russell says, “I feel I’ve added a more believable realism by making sure it’s done straight”, it’s hard to be sure. While I don’t agree with one review which said it was “D-grade horror trash”, to quote Roger Ebert, “This is the sort of exercise [Russell] could film with one hand tied behind his back, and it looks like that was indeed more or less his approach.” Regardless, its IBFS status is certain, and let’s put it this way: at his age, Ken is old enough to know better.

This morning, I woke up with a slight hangover, but it pales into insignificance alongside the one which Demon, the ISP through whom you’re reading this, must have. For, after losing a landmark Internet libel case, they are facing a bill for damages and costs which could be around five hundred grand — not the sort of headache that can be cured with a cup of coffee and a bacon sandwich. It’s really the first time that libel laws have been applied to the Internet in this country, and the main thrust of the decision is that ISPs are now deemed to be liable for the content held by them. That cracking sound you hear is a huge can of worms being opened…

I have to say that Demon’s behaviour in this case is at least somewhat curious. Some of the messages in question were faked to make them appear as if the plaintiff, Dr Lawrence Godfrey, had written them: despite informing Demon of this, they took no action, which seems to indicate a severely laissez-faire approach. While you can certainly defend almost any content under the banner of free speech, it’s much harder to explain why you allowed forgery. In addition, having decided to rack up legal costs running into six figures, they then decided to capitulate shortly before the case went to trial.

The implications of this don’t really need to be spelled out, nor the inherent impossibilities. ISPs are now deemed liable for what they carry, but it would take a Chinese army of dedicated surfers to make the slightest dent in the volume of Net traffic. Even if they relied on responding to user complaints, the potential workload is huge: anyone who has been on Usenet will have seen the flame wars that break out. The number of potentially or actually libellous statements posted each day is no less enormous.

Much of the appeal of Usenet is its unfettered nature, but perhaps it should come with a big disclaimer: don’t believe all you read. For both the best and worst thing about the Internet is that anyone can post what they want. There is no quality control of any sort, and while there is a lot of accurate information to be found, there is also a whole load of dreck. The problem is telling the two apart, but this is really down to the surfer. Anyone who believes something just because it’s on the Net, is gullible in the extreme, and by extension, suing someone because the less rigorously-minded might accept it seems a tad unfair.

To some extent, what we’re seeing here is technofear. Any new technology will be posed as a threat to civilization, particularly when it becomes available to the masses — for an example, see the ‘video nasties’ scare of the 1980’s. This may partly because the smaller something is, the easier it is for it to slip under the wire, legally speaking, but I can’t help feeling there is something elitist here: an “is this the kind of book you want your servants to read?” thing. And particularly with the Net, they may have a point: it’s probably true to say that as the number of users increase, the average intelligence of them decreases, and with it the ability to sort out the wheat from the chaff.

In the early days, connection to the Net required industrial-strength computing equipment. Now, anyone with a PC and a modem can get on, and soon, even the PC is becoming more and more optional as things like games consoles come on-line. The problem with letting any idiot log onto the Net, is that there’s no shortage of idiots keen to try. Maybe we should add a healthy scepticism to the pre-requisites, alongside a working phone line.

We’d like to welcome guest columnist and TC-icon Lino to the editorial chair for this edition, his own special blend of understated social observation bringing a much-needed dose of sophisticated wit to this poor site. So, without further ado, heeeeeeeeeeeeere’s Lino!

MUST……. VENT……… SPLEEN!!!!!

You know, I thought I’d made my point quite clear last year when we talked about the whole Opal Fruit/Starburst thing, but no, some people didn’t get it. This has been gnawing away at my brain for quite some time now. I’ve let it pass as I’ve had better things to do, but we’re terribly quiet at work just now, and if I don’t do something I’ll just end up ripping someone a new “asshole”. (Or arsehole for people who haven’t quite forgotten how to spell properly… Shut UP, I know that I don’t spell properly, but if I wanted a session of introspection I’d shell out 50 quid for an hour with a “councillor”). Right, where was I.. Ohhhhhhhh, yes.

Sugar Puffs, you know, the great old breakfast cereal that tastes of honey and if you eat too much of it, makes your urine smell of the cereal you’ve just eaten. No problem with that over here at Raffa Towers at all, no Sir. For years now, it’s various cheerful television advertising campaigns all had the same loveable big old yellow “Honey Monster” fronting them. For a while there, it all got a bit silly (big breasted Australian ex-soap opera “stars” appearing as love interest, rapping, playing “football” etc), but I stuck with them (even though I don’t eat the ruddy cereal). All this changed a few months ago when I happened to see a commercial for a great new breakfast product called “Cocopuffs”, and who was the spokesperson for this fabulous chocolatey tasting cereal feast? The Chocobunny? The Cocoshunter? No, they used the Honey Monster….

Does that make any sense to you??!!

Because it ruddy well doesn’t to me, he likes honey, he’s not ever mentioned his liking for anything even slightly chocolatey… The bastard.

Of course, since I saw that commercial, I saw the Ford commercial featuring the moose having his life flash before his eyes, and the Penguin biscuit commercial featuring the giant penguin trying to get into the aquarium (two quid, mate? Is that per fish?), so I’m feeling a lot happier.

OK, off you go….
     Lino

I feel his pain. My personal bugbear is companies who rebrand their products, usually in a desperate attempt to make them seem less crap. Pepsi spent 330 million pounds on relaunching their cola in (gasp!) a blue can, and sales still went down 15% because, guess what? It was still more fizzy dreck than fizzy drink. And now Marks and Spencers are up to the same sort of thing, to try and shore up their plummeting sales.

I have never had any sympathy for them, ever since I went in and tried to buy a suit. After fending off M&S card sales people, I discovered that the only credit card they accepted was their own one. I strongly suspect the decline of the company is connected less to the colour of its carrier bags (something they are apparently changing), and more to this selfish disregard for customer preference.

However, they do have one genius-level product: non-polish shoes, which form my entire work footwear wardrobe. I’ve no idea how it’s done (and why it wasn’t done before) but months after buying them, they still have that just-polished look. Well, at least I assume that’s what “just-polished” looks like, I think my last pair went their entire lives without feeling the caress of bristle… More of that kind of thing, and fewer prawn-and-avocado sandwiches, will soon see the company back on its (just-polished…) feet.

An early update this week, since I’m off to Southampton for the Minami anime convention tomorrow. And, indeed, not that much of an update, since my lifestyle has been destroyed by my VCR quietly grinding to a halt last Friday. “F05”, it said. “Refer to dealer”, replied the manual. “Where’s the bloody receipt?”, added Jim: though still (just) within the guarantee period, I can’t really take it back because of the absence of that little slip of paper. I found the receipt for the previous machine, of course… Phoned a repair shop or two, and they all breezily assured me it was a loading motor problem, and quite easy to fix. “Easy” is one thing, “cheap” is another. Hence, there will be a short delay before I get to review all the stuff I took back from the States.

Indeed, household appliances, and the house in general, seem to have dominated spending in TC Towers lately. The oven, long a source of interestingly clangy noises which made a simple pizza sound like a Test Dept concert, finally gave up the ghost. It’s been replaced, but by a gas oven, which is different enough to ensure I have been consuming my food either cold or carbonated. It doesn’t bother with anything sensible on the front like a temperature: it just goes from 1 to 9. The manual, even less usefully, describes 1 as “Cool” and 9 as “Very hot”. I think I could probably have worked this out myself. Expect sales of microwave-ready meals in the Tulse Hill area to increase.

We also discovered that roots belonging to the 1:1 Amazonian scale-model, thinly disguised as a hedge, which is planted in front of the house, are rapidly heading towards becoming an integral part of the foundations. The problem is, if we get rid of it now (perhaps we should have bought a wood-burning stove!), the cure might be nastier than the disease, involving the rebuilding of the entire front wall, before my bedroom suddenly acquires a genuinely “airy view”. I knew we should have Agent Orange’d the bastard the day we moved in.

Instead, now it’s going to cost a sum which is currently indeterminate, but likely to make the costs of new ovens and VCR repairs, pale into insignificance. Hang on, I thought we were simply trying to sell the house – y’know, get money out of it? I understand than you can only buy a house if you have money, but now it appears that you also need money if you want to sell it, too. I guess this is no more than we deserve, after seven years of largely neglected maintenance. The chickens (albeit more floral than faunal) are now coming home to roost…

Finally, went to the WCW wrestling at London Arena last weekend. Though the wrestling was thoroughly enjoyable, and the venue suitably spectacular, perhaps the two most memorable moments were outside. Firstly, Canary Wharf tube station, on the Jubilee Line extension: is it just me, or has the designer of it seen Logan’s Run once too often? I almost expected to see Jenny Agutter in a short skirt (“Look! There’s Jenny-bush!”) on the other escalator. And most amusingly, after the event, I was actually asked for my autograph. No, I don’t think I was mistaken for Sting or Bret Hart — the black-and-white striped shirt I had on just made me look like a ref! Hell, I signed anyway, and even added “referee” helpfully underneath. Somewhere out there, is a very confused kid carefully scanning each program to see whether his ref can be found…

As I left Phoenix, any legendary bird attempting to rise from the flames fire would have been distinctly soggy, doused by the sheets of rain pouring down from a severely un-Arizonan sky. They may not get much rain there, but they do tend to get an entire month’s worth in one American-sized helping. This was the same storm which succeeded in flushing a jet off the runway in California, parking it on the forecourt of a nearby garage: the pilot has now bought a house with the Green Shield stamps. Actually, that little incident brushed a little nearer home than I’d like as three days prior, I’d flown on the very same airline, Southwest, out of the very same airport, Las Vegas. Luckily, at that point conditions were a little calmer and Chris + I endured nothing traumatic than a surfeit of in-flight peanuts.

Las Vegas itself, on the other hand, was its usual wonderful, insane, excessive self. Since last visit, three more mega-hotels had popped up, including the Paris and the Venetian: the former had a 2/3 scale model of the Eiffel Tower in front, while the latter boasts a quarter-mile long Grand Canal, complete with gondolas (on the second floor, no less!) and a lobby which made the Sistine Chapel look like the daubings of a ten-year old. Bear in mind that this is all being built out of the quarters we drop into the slots…

Though we didn’t do too badly on this score. We were pleased to renew our acquaintance with our favourite Safebuster machines, though they are getting harder to find as newer, flashier models replace them. The wonderful thing about Safebuster is that you can tell when it’s going to pay out: the top is a safe with a combination lock which spins, and when you get three numbers in the right order, it goes into jackpot mode, paying out anywhere from $4 to $10,000. As you get the numbers, it “crosses them off” a panel at the top, and it’s surprising how many people walk away when two are gone, and the machine is on the verge of coughing up.

Thus, we have learned to “predate” on these machines; lurk innocently in the background, breathing discouragements under our breath, while some wizened granny fills it up for us, only to pounce the second she walks away. Then we nail the final cross down and rejoice in the resounding jingle of quarters, spilling out of the machine like guts from a freshly-slaughtered buffalo. We never quite managed enough to send that resignation fax, but on the last day, we left with over a hundred dollars. Plus, it’s just such fun — when you win, you win, and when you lose, the combination lock turns for an additional adrenaline boost.

Unfortunately, these machines are getting rarer – the condition of the ones we found was distinctly shabby – and I fear for their future. It may not be long before they are replaced by the bane of my gambling life: video slots. There’s something reassuringly solid about a machine with proper reels and I feel I’m getting some kind of mechanical recompense for my quarter, not just a flashing screen. Plus, frankly, I don’t trust video games — I’ve played enough of them to know that they can cheat the player without the slightest qualm. No matter the flashy features they may have, give me something with a handle on the side, that doesn’t gives you an electric shock if you are wearing the wrong kind of jumper.

It would be wrong to think that all our time in Vegas was spent gambling, or even that all my time in America was spent in Vegas, but here is not the place to reveal lurid details of a connection between the George Foreman Fat-Reducing Party Grill and cherry-liqueur chocolates. However, I will add that any readers looking for an alarm clock should check out the brutally kitsch wake-up calls currently on offer from Trash City’s commercial depot, as located at a trade show we bumped into behind the Venetian…