Amanda Donohoe as Lady Sylvia Marsh in “The Lair of the White Worm,” now available in a SteelBook Blu-ray edition from Lionsgate Home Entertainment.
Her goal is the sacrifice of humans to bring the slithering deity back to life and she wields an extended and sharp pair of fangs when necessary to kill and control her victims. The visually twisted director presents an abundance of exploitive imagery tied to snakes and worms to reinforce the villain’s intentions, and even a battle between Christianity and paganism plays out.
Mr. Russell speaks nonstop, often acting like an amusing omniscient narrator to the movie. He focuses on the Stoker source material, D’Ampton Worm folklore and the cast, but he doesn’t give much explanation for his more outrageous expressionistic scenes. Moving on to featurettes culled from the 2017 release, the disc delivers a 27-minute look at the truly disturbing practical visual effects as delightfully explained by artisans NeillThey touch on such moments creating the large worm head puppet, impaling a character on his eyeball, moving a foam worm in the awkward crucifixion scene and cutting a body in half.