My review is probably skewed because I was drunk when I watched it on cable TV, so this is not a review of a bowdlerized broadcast version interrupted by commercials. This film is a hoot! For all its plot twists about ancient cults and caves it simply does not sustain a consistent mood of suspense and scariness. The low budget first Jason film did that better. The main thing here is Amanda Donohoe in her prime and often naked though discretely so. This is R rated after all.) Her part is not ambiguous as to her sexuality either. She is definitely bisexual, and very much the Black Widow, killing her partner after mating. The gratuitous sequence with the Boy Scout in the bathing pool certainly proves this. Most of the killings occur off screen and Hugh Grant never seems to have a clue. If he is intended to be a typical; member of the inbred aristocracy, then it was historically fortunate that they were not French and lost their power gradually and gently. Another memorable player is Catherine Oxenberg, who played many ingénues in this period on TV. She does her best to imitate a virgin but common knowledge of her activities in real life keeps getting in the way. Since the plot's climax turns on virgin sacrifice with her having been strung up in her undies in the cavern as AD prepares for feeding the worm. Whether the term white worm was meant to be a phallic double entendre I will leave to your judgment. Since the film is so uneven in tone, it does not carry you along in a constant state of impending dread. The original version of the SCIFI classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers, or the 1951 version of The Thing with Kenneth Tobey did that much better. So don't expect chills and thrills, rather come prepared to belly laugh and best be drunk as well.
Review of The Lair of the White Worm
