Ken Russell’s Lair of the White Worm (1988) is less a horror film than a lavish descent into excess — gothic, erotic, surreal, and gleefully unhinged. Based loosely on a Bram Stoker novel and filtered through Russell’s maximalist imagination, the film delivers aristocratic vampires, pagan mythology, dream logic, and imagery so camp it practically dares you to take it seriously.
Over the years, the movie has found lasting love within queer cult cinema for exactly that reason. Its exaggerated performances, sadomasochistic undertones, gender play, and refusal to behave like a “proper” genre film place it firmly in the tradition of queer camp: beautiful, dangerous, ridiculous, and strangely sincere all at once. Amanda Donohoe’s snake-skinned villain alone secured its place in midnight-movie legend.
