The Lair of the White Worm

The Lair of the White Worm (1988), directed by Ken Russell, CMV Laservision remaster, encoded in 10 bit HEVC with AAC sound, including original theatrical stereo, two commentary tracks, and English subtitles.

IMDb : https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095488/

Video encoded in two-pass 12.0 Mbps x265 10bit with the veryslow preset for archive quality image. Audio encoded separately with Apple AAC for the highest-quality AAC sound available.

Text subtitles converted to SRT.

Note : Ken Russell's maybe strangest film, a folk horror starring Amanda Donohoe, Hugh Grant, Catherine Oxenberg, and Peter Capaldi, never gets away from feeling faintly ridiculous, although all the elements of a solid, original horror film are in here. Loosely based on a Bram Stoker novel, which is apparently quite bad, it's a story of ancient monsters from legend living on and being worshipped by a secret cult in the English countryside, and there are also incredibly surreal hallucination sequences created with the best 80s video effect hardware could conjure up, as well as a strange dream sequence, a venom-spitting snake priestess with a strap-on dildo, and fighting evil with bagpipes while wearing a kilt.

Scottish archaeology student Angus Flint uncovers the skull of an enormous snake while excavating a convent, and believes it might be connected to a local legend about a dragon that was slain by the local lord centuries ago. The disappearance of a local man connects to the legend by the discovery of his watch in the cave where the worm supposedly lived, and it turns out a local noblewoman is actually an immortal priestess in a cult worshipping a Roman snake god. James d'Ampton, the descentant of the lord from the legend, gets involved, and with Angus and Eve, the owner of the land where the skull was found, theorizing it connects to a network of caves where a monster might be living. Things get complicated as Eve is kidnapped and several locals are turned into thralls of the snake by being bitten.

This remaster is middle of the road, but looks fine, a little soft and slightly crushed blacks, but quite watchable. Stereo track is also fine, commentary tracks pretty amusing, especially the one with the director.

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