Author: jindai

A lightly edited live-watch conversation between Rick and an AI research assistant, who was fact-checking the movie and gradually losing its composure alongside him. Rick’s comments appear normally; the assistant’s replies generally begin with an emoji. Spoilers begin immediately.

Normal Visual Grammar Has Been Discontinued

0:00:00

I am watching The Lair of the White Worm. Turns out it’s going to be the next movie on the How Did This Get Made? podcast, and this one is genuinely confusing me on so many levels. First: How did Hugh Grant end up in this movie? And B: Is there even a plot? I’m not understanding anything.

😂 There is a plot. Peter Capaldi’s Angus digs up a reptilian skull; Hugh Grant’s ancestor supposedly killed a gigantic serpent called the D’Ampton Worm; and Amanda Donohoe’s Lady Sylvia is connected to an ancient snake cult. Eventually it becomes Capaldi and Grant versus a sexy immortal snake priestess and a giant underground worm.

It doesn’t feel as though that plot is unfolding because Ken Russell delivers it through camp, hallucinations, religious imagery, sex jokes, and scenes that seem to have wandered in from entirely different movies. Hugh Grant was still six years away from Four Weddings and a Funeral, while Peter Capaldi was decades away from Doctor Who.

00:10

This movie is now starting, and it’s not really canon. It is showing Vestron Pictures.

00:15

Great big rocky hilltop with a round hole, meaning cave, in it, with Vestron Pictures present lettered over it.

00:26

Title sequence: The Lair of the White Worm.

00:44

Hugh Grant, Catherine Oxenberg, Peter Capaldi, and Sammi Davis as Mary. This is a real who’s who gonna be who.

00:53

Okay, this is a real surprise: screenplay by Ken Russell—expected. Adapted from the novel by Bram Stoker—completely unexpected.

Yes, that Bram Stoker. The Lair of the White Worm was one of Stoker’s final novels, published in 1911, fourteen years after Dracula. And apparently Ken Russell didn’t invent this basic premise out of whole cloth. Stoker was already playing with English folklore, archaeology, an ancient monstrous serpent and a dangerous aristocratic woman. Russell just took those ingredients and, well… Ken Russell-ed the hell out of them.

Very short version of Stoker’s novel:

• Adam Salton returns to England from Australia to live with his elderly great-uncle in Derbyshire.

• He becomes involved with his neighbor Sir Nathaniel de Salis, who knows the local history and legends.

• The area is associated with an ancient monster known as the White Worm, a gigantic serpent-like creature surviving from a prehistoric age.

• The beautiful and sinister Lady Arabella March is closely connected to the creature—and, ultimately, is revealed to essentially be the White Worm in human form.

• Another local landowner, Edgar Caswall, becomes obsessed with Lilla Watford and engages her in bizarre battles of hypnotic or psychic will.

• Caswall also has an enormous kite shaped like a hawk, which becomes part of an increasingly strange subplot. Yes, really.

• Lilla dies during one of Caswall’s psychic confrontations; her cousin Mimi becomes Adam’s love interest.

• Adam and Sir Nathaniel work out what Lady Arabella is and devise a wonderfully understated Victorian solution to an ancient supernatural monster: they try to blow the hell out of it with explosives.

• The climax destroys the White Worm and its lair, while Caswall and his estate meet their own spectacular end.

• The novel mixes Gothic horror, ancient mythology, pseudo-science, mesmerism, romance and some extremely peculiar ideas about evolution and race that very much belong to its 1911 context.

01:31

Focus pushing in on the cave, right before “Produced and Directed by Ken Russell.”

01:58

Dirty, weird-looking skull being picked up by Peter Capaldi. We know he’s Angus, and he screams, “Yeehaw!”

02:19

Two sisters are joking now: “If that is the primitive man, it looks like a dinosaur sat on him.” So we have Mary here and we have Eve here, both happy as a clam—or two clams, I guess.

02:39

Okay, he is digging on the family farm and found this massive skull. Yeah, that’s not weird.

03:06

Still playing happy family. “Not since we lost Mum and Dad, no.” Seems like something significant was just said.

03:20

That layer of flint is 1,000 years old. It’s the site of an old convent. It had been built when the Domesday Book was written. Doomsday Book?

03:43

“I found a couple of coins bearing the stamp of Marcus Crusius.”

04:34

Eve and Mary have been invited to a party, and she’s invited Angus along so he can drive them there. No dinner is in the offering at home, but he can eat at the party.

05:24

First shot of James wearing his RAF uniform.

05:18

James ritualistically kills the great big stuffed worm—kind of like one of those Japanese parade dragons, whatever they’re called—in half with a sword. Barely tapped it; it split automatically. Was not dramatic, but everyone laughs and smiles.

05:46

In a great big old Gothic-or-something-or-other castle.

Note: The song was performed by a live band inside the big Gothic castle.

06:44

OMG, singer rhymed “booze” with “cows” (“coose”).

07:38

So, turns out Angus is a paying guest of the two girls, not a relative, and they are having some exposition about the D’Ampton Worm and how the Worm is the local hero, evidently.

08:03

And James’s full name is James D’Ampton, the landlord of the estate, and he states to Angus, “We are distantly connected. Sir John D’Ampton was a valiant knight who slew the local dragon.” “For centuries, his ancestors have immortalized the occasion with an annual banquet for the locals, usually with tankards of mead and Morris dancing.”

08:54

So Angus is an archaeology student who is out here excavating, studying the Romans of Mercia, though it’s never been thoroughly excavated. Evidently, where he’s digging now—which is on James’s property—is the site of an old convent, which is also the site of this ancient Roman civilization, I guess.

09:09

And James is basically explaining that “wyrm” might sound like “worm,” but it’s actually more like dragon or snake. Gothic vurm, German vermis—all the same word.

09:28

Pickled earthworms in aspic is the local delicacy. Eeeew.

09:39

Big Gothic moon with clouds drifting across it.

10:10

Angus walking with Mary, talking about Scotland and other things, and she brings up, “My mum and dad used to come this way home from the pub. It’s a neat shortcut—or was. Nobody uses it at night now.”

11:18

Okay, Mary’s just a depressive. Angus is basically flirting with her and asks, basically, if she has a boyfriend. She says, “Not now. Killed himself on a motorbike.” Yeah, that’s a hard no, dude.

11:26

He still kissed her, and it was a really awkward-looking kiss—kind of like he smashed his lips on her face and then slid off.

11:39

Mary is afraid of this car without headlights. Those look like headlights to me, but I could be wrong.

12:03

There’s a picture of the two girls and parent-looking people between them. The cop finishes his coffee while looking at the pictures.

12:39

The cop has brought her, evidently, a pocket watch. She seems very emotional about it.

12:52

It’s her father’s pocket watch, and it was found in Stonerich Cavern.

13:40

Mary relates that they saw a car with hooded lights. Says that the car went toward Temple House. The cop says, “I’ll take a look.” then goes, “I guess not an early night for me.”

14:15

I don’t know why, but the cop parks outside the gates—which are open—walks down the path, and then jumps off the path to go behind a tree. There’s nothing in sight. Don’t know why he’s doing this.

14:30

“Hello, Charlie. Erny here. I’m up at Temple House,” speaking into his walkie-talkie.

14:48

Evidently, there’s only one cop car and the only taxi in town. The other cop had arrested him for drunk driving, so Erny is on his own.

15:33

Pretty lady in a white coat and a white tricorn hat offers policeman Erny some help with the sprained ankle.

15:38

Okay, this is beyond. She’s evidently sucking poison out. Maybe it wasn’t a sprained ankle. Maybe he got bitten by a snake, but… well.

16:36

Policeman Erny was investigating an abandoned house, and yet he’s totally accepted this lady as a valid occupant of this house? Despite the fact that the furniture he is sitting on is covered in sheets, and all the furniture in the room is covered in sheets or drop cloths or whatever. It’s actually very visually striking because all the furniture is covered in white, and she’s wearing white.

17:03

Evidently, she is the lady of the manor, because he said, “We weren’t expecting you until the spring,” and she said, “Oh, it is the spring. Look,” indicating something on her blouse.

17:26

She asks, “Who reported me?” Erny replies, “One of the Trent girls. Mary.” She responds, “Weren’t her parents supposed to have vanished here?”

17:52

Erny brings up the search party happening in the morning because her father’s watch was found. She asks, “Was he at the end of the chain?” and looks very smug.

18:03

That car again, and it’s a very fancy car. Maybe much of their budget was spent on this one car. Silver Jaguar, maybe.

18:45

The pretty lady, now in brown, is looking at the excavation and has a weird smile on her face. Then she goes in the house.

19:13

She goes through the house like she just lives there. Sees a letter, puts it down; sees the watch, puts it back down. Why would such a precious thing be just left sitting on the table unattended?

19:25

The lady goes upstairs.

20:15

She looks through three rooms, sees nothing of interest, then turns to the open room…

20:16

There is this forced perspective thing with the skull in the foreground and the woman all in brown with a hood over her head. She slinks into this room, she looks tiny then gets close to it and this skull is still huge, but she can put her two hands on it and she’s massaging it for no reason, with ecstasy, I guess.

22:56

Oh my God, Sylvia , or whatever her name is just grew fangs and spit at a Christ figurine. Then runs out to her car, absconding with the skull.

😂 The hooded woman is Lady Sylvia Marsh (Amanda Donohoe)—the woman you’ve already seen acting rather suspiciously around Temple House. The enormous skull is the legendary worm/serpent skull, and the ecstatic skull-rubbing is very deliberately sexual. Ken Russell is not operating with a particularly subtle symbolic vocabulary here.

And that moment actually is plot-relevant. The fangs and her reaction to the crucifix are telling you pretty unambiguously that Sylvia is not merely an eccentric rich woman interested in the local worm legend. She’s physically/supernaturally connected to the serpent cult, and Christian objects are antagonistic to whatever she is.

But Ken Russell apparently decided that simply having her recoil from the crucifix would be insufficient. No, she has to grow giant snake fangs and HISS/SPIT AT JESUS. 😂

21:28

Jaguar is light Metallic blue, not silver. As her car passes a road T, James’ car comes into view, turning to the road Sylvia just left.

21:41

James and Eve leave the car, she enters the house, he examines the pit Angus has made.

22:20

Eve finds the note and her father’s watch, explains to James where it was found.

22:34

“Mary and Angus have gone over there, with a search party” “But only nutty potholers go down there. It’s supposed to be dangerous as hell.” “Do you want me to drive you over?” ummm

22:39

Eve says she’s going to lie down, James says he might rest, as well, chides her, playfully, for keeping him up so late, dancing. Friends, huh. Then he pulls a carrot out of his pocket and takes a bite. Pocket carrot?

22:45

Twenty Two Minutes In. Oh my God. I am 22 minutes into this movie, and it says an hour and 11 minutes, so it’s mercifully short. But I don’t know—this is going to be hard.

😆 One correction, though: The Lair of the White Worm is normally about 89 minutes, not 71. So if your player says 1:11 remaining, that’s the remaining time, not the total runtime. Which means—and I regret being the person who has to tell you this—you probably have about 67 minutes of Ken Russell left, not 49. 😆

😳

😂 I know. You thought you had 49 minutes left. You have 67. That 😳 is the face of a man who just discovered his prison sentence was calculated incorrectly. 😆

Well, at least I got this on Hoopla, which means I don’t have to watch commercials that interrupt this and allow my sanity to return for a brief minute and a half or whatever only to be ripped away again. This is just a sustained vacuuming of my cerebral capability.

😂 There is something perversely appropriate about watching this without commercial breaks. A 90-second ad for laundry detergent might allow your brain to reestablish normal cause-and-effect, and that would only make returning to Lady Sylvia worse. Skull → erotic skull handling → Roman nightmare → Jesus-eating sock worm → flaming transparent head → snake watch → fangs → spit at Jesus → skull theft → onward. No palate cleanser. No pharmaceutical ad. No cheerful insurance mascot arriving to reassure you that ordinary reality still exists.

Well, the blond girl is quite pretty, there is that

😂 There you go. Something comprehensible has finally happened. That’s Catherine Oxenberg as Eve Trent. And yes, she’s striking—she was already known for playing Amanda Carrington on Dynasty a few years earlier. So when the plot disappears again, you’ve at least got one reliable landmark: “I have no idea what Ken Russell is doing, but Eve is pretty.”

But her dress is straight up bonkers. It’s like a layer cake made of fabric.

😂 It looks like the costume designer was told, “English country girl,” and replied, “Excellent, how many tiers?” “Layer cake made of fabric” is dead on. She’s got this exceptionally pretty, relatively natural late-80s look from the shoulders up, and then the camera pulls back and her dress appears to have been assembled by stacking progressively larger tablecloths underneath her.

23:43

Eve goes upstairs for her nap, sees the spit stains on the wall, and touches the crucifix/Jesus figure that Sylvia has just spat venom onto, and that triggers Eve’s hallucinatory vision

23:46

Eve has this absolutely bananas dream where Roman soldiers are evidently raping priestesses. There’s a Jesus figure getting eaten by a white hand puppet worm, and somebody wearing I guess green screen makeup has flames behind them so the flames are going through their head. None of that made any sense. And eve herself is in a nuns habit praying, though is interrupted by all this goings on. She wakes up from it, pulls a watch out of her pocket, where the second hand is a big ass snake, freaks her out.

😂 That also explains why the vision is specifically a psychosexual war between Christian imagery and the serpent religion. Eve has effectively made contact with Sylvia’s supernatural influence through an object representing the opposing religion. Which means your earlier confusion was partly justified because Russell gives you a genuinely important piece of plot mechanics and then immediately rewards your attention with ROMANS! NUNS! RAPE! FIRE! JESUS! GIANT WHITE SOCK WORM! 😂

24:17

The Roman soldiers are raping the nuns, and it what was really funny (yes, funny) is the nudity looks more like they have mole skin covering all the naughty bits.

😂 That sequence has a very conspicuous “stage nudity” quality to it. 😂 What you’re calling moleskin is probably close to what you’re seeing: some combination of modesty coverings/costume pieces and extremely deliberate posing, rather than Russell trying to make the assault look naturalistic.

24:40

I don’t know what I was thinking, this vacuuming of my cerebral capabilities has already caused problems.

24:41

James returns spontaneously as she wakes up and goes downstairs, carefully, checks the watch and—

26:00

SNAKE-SECOND HAND.

😂 At that point the movie has gone from symbolism to Ken Russell standing behind you yelling, “DID YOU GET THE SNAKE THING? HERE IS ANOTHER SNAKE.”

26:12

She didn’t remember the dream until she saw the snake hand on the watch, now, She remembers. ”After I passed out, I remember A SERPENT, a horrible thing, towering above me, coiled around a crucifix.” That’s ALL you saw?

The important thing at your exact point in the movie is that you haven’t failed to understand some crucial explanation. The movie is feeding you associations, not information: worm/serpent → pagan cult → Lady Sylvia → sex → sacrifice → Christianity → danger. The actual plot is only gradually going to catch up with the imagery.

Oh my God, this movie is crazy.

😂 The Lair of the White Worm is different because Ken Russell knows he’s making something outrageous. The giant phallic worm imagery, Amanda Donohoe writhing around, the psychedelic religious hallucinations, Hugh Grant wandering through it all looking like he’s accidentally arrived from another film—that’s largely intentional. So “WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?!” can too easily be answered with “approximately what you’re seeing.”

This also retroactively makes that insane dream slightly more intelligible. All that Christian-versus-serpent imagery wasn’t random—even though Russell presented it like somebody dropped a Bible, a snake documentary, and an acid tab into a blender.

And she stole the skull

YES! 😂 And that is actually a genuine plot development rather than another Ken Russell fever dream.

Lady Sylvia stole the skull because she knows exactly what it is and what it represents. So that earlier scene where she’s practically making love to the damn thing wasn’t merely “eccentric woman really appreciates paleontology.” The skull is connected to the serpent/worm cult she belongs to.

What is that skull made of?

😂 If you mean the actual movie prop, rather than what it’s supposed to be in the story: I don’t know of a reliable production source that specifies its material.

From how it looks and is handled onscreen, I’d strongly suspect a lightweight fabricated prop—something like molded fiberglass/resin or a foam-based construction with a hard painted surface—rather than anything remotely bone-like. The actors move and handle that enormous thing much too easily for it to be a big solid casting.

And after watching Lady Sylvia give it that enthusiastic massage, we have also established that it is apparently load-bearing enough for Ken Russell purposes. 😂

Yeah, my first thought was that it was plaster but like you said it is far too easy for lady Sylvia to pick up so yeah fiberglass seems like a better choice, but if it’s fiberglass, they did a pretty good job. I guess the budget for special effects was generous for this.

😂 Yeah, plaster was my first visual impression too because the surface has that chalky, slightly porous quality. But once Sylvia actually picks the damned thing up, plaster becomes awfully hard to believe. At that size, a solid plaster prop would be heavy and fragile.

Fiberglass over a lightweight armature would make sense, and if that’s what they used, the finish is quite good. The sculpt itself is also one of the more convincing effects in the movie—the irregularities, staining, cracks, and dull finish keep it from screaming “painted fiberglass.”

And this clearly wasn’t a bargain-basement production, despite looking delightfully cheap in certain sequences. The money seems to be distributed very unevenly: a convincing fossil skull and substantial locations, immediately followed by WHITE WORM HAND PUPPET EATS JESUS. 😂

26:13

So James sees the second-hand snake as well, and of course, that freaks Eve out and then it switches back. Oy

And Hugh Grant is just Hugh granting

26:39

Full snake on a cross mosaic in the pit. Where did that come from? Then go to look at the skull, or more properly, look FOR the skull. Angus and Mary return, looking a bit mussed up.

27:49

Eve has now actually told Angus and Mary about the vision, they’ve discovered the skull has vanished, and Hugh Grant’s James has departed in that gorgeous vintage car—which is an extremely Hugh Grant way to exit the current supernatural crisis, and now there’s a big old Boy Scout hitchhiking in the rain,

BIG OLD BOY SCOUT.

That’s Kevin, and honest-to-goodness Boy Scout, and his appearance really does change the movie’s temperature again.

28:13

And he’s now talking to Sylvia so of course my mind is going to: Oh, she’s going to eat him.

Your brain: “Well, somebody has just delivered dinner.” 😂

28:49

He willingly got in her car and now he’s looking at her thigh. oh boy

😂 Oh, Kevin. Buddy.

29:21

“Don’t worry. You’ll leave me well satisfied.”

He’s hearing, “attractive woman is flirting outrageously with me.” We’re hearing, “Ken Russell has placed a large unsuspecting boy in a confined space with a venomous snake woman who just promised for him to leave her ‘well satisfied.’”

29:44

Snakes and ladders! She is in lingerie, Sylvia, he is a MINOR!

HAVE YOU REMEMBERED THAT THIS MOVIE IS ABOUT A SNAKE?!

30:20

And he’s playing the harmonica as she is dancing. I guess seductively? I’m laughing so hard right now.

30:43

Well, he did say in the car something about a mouth organ, but I completely let it pass by without thought. and that’s what you call a harmonica if you’re kind of stupid, mouth organ. She just ripped it out of his mouth and put it on the mantle of the fireplace! I guess from that, I am to assume that she was genuinely captivated by the harmonica playing. Ah la, swami with the flutes and the cobras in the baskets

YES! 😂 It’s “mouth organ”—an old British term for a harmonica.

Oh my God I have a distinct feeling that this would’ve been better stoned.

Current status IQ 82

😂 That may itself demonstrate the problem: The Lair of the White Worm has now vacuumed away enough of my cerebral capability that I’m not getting your jokes.

31:31

The Boy Scout and the Bath

31:32

Bathtime and she puts him in a great big stone tub while she sits Scantily clad with thigh high latex boots and just sponges him with a loofah? And I’m going to state clearly, you can still be a Boy Scout through your 18th year, so he had to be at least that.

😂 Of course it’s bath time. Why wouldn’t it be bath time? And yes, Kevin is, by decree 18 years old, since breakfast.

32:13

Oh, shit just bit his dick! And she JUST said, “Come on, I’m not going to bite you.”

😂 THERE IT IS. Your prediction in the car—“she’s gonna eat him”—wasn’t entirely wrong. You merely had the anatomical location wrong.

32:47

“You are a vegetable, metaphorically speaking, The God is not a vegetarian” and now she’s telling him why you must not be afraid to die. Oh my God the laughter is ended, but I’m still laughing anyway.

33:15

Oh, she’s going to throw the skull in that big bath and that’ll make the snake rise up – and the doorbell rings. never mind

😂 You: Okay, I’ve figured out Ken Russell. Skull goes into giant stone bath, giant worm rises—

DOORBELL.

Movie: No.

33:40

I’m still laughing and she just took her booted foot and pushed his head under the water. That kind of ruins the sacrifice, to be drowned, doesn’t it, lady?

😂 Lady Sylvia, please review your own ritual procedures. She has just spent all this time establishing that the god is not a vegetarian, Kevin is apparently intended as an offering, and death is nothing to fear—and then the doorbell rings and she’s basically: Oh, damn it. Stay here.” BOOT. GLUB GLUB GLUB. Now you’re laughing while arguing with a snake priestess about proper sacrificial protocol. 😆

Having to meet it on its own terms, and it’s killing me.

😂 That’s exactly what happened. You didn’t figure out The Lair of the White Worm. You surrendered to its operating system.

34:06

Hugh Grant Conducts a Census

34:07

And Hugh Grant. OK I’m back to being confused. He now appears to be a baggage claim officer at her door and asking her why she’s not in the phonebook. Oh my God look at this is what I snapped

34:10

😂😂 This is a hilarious picture. That expression on Sylvia’s face is “I currently have a Boy Scout drowning in my bathtub and now Hugh Grant is conducting a census.”

What’s with that hat?

35:15

😂 That’s James/Hugh Grant wearing what appears to be an RAF officer’s peaked cap—you can see the crown-and-wings badge on the front. So the movie isn’t suggesting that he’s suddenly become a baggage-claim officer. He’s apparently using his RAF uniform/persona as part of his ridiculous doorstep investigation.

At what point in the movie did I learn that he’s in the RAF? I guess now?

I tried on one of those round hats and I do mean round. They have no oval to them at all and I don’t have a round head so it presses abysmally on the front and back and then it’s just gapping on the sides.

That is not a stairway. That is a one-foot climb to the inside of the house. There are no stairs there, that is a ledge.

OK, we have a a multi-million-pound budget, but that leaves no room for building stairs. “You’ll just have to step up.”

Ken Russell, production meeting:

“We’ve got £3.2 million.”

“Excellent. How much for the giant worm?”

“Plenty.”

“Hallucinatory Roman nun orgy?”

“Covered.”

“Snake fangs?”

“Covered.”

“Giant fossil skull?”

“Covered.”

“Thigh-high boots?”

“Obviously.”

“Can we get one step for the front door?”

“…Don’t be ridiculous. Hugh can climb.”

35:12

He introduced himself to her as her neighbor, and he’s wearing a full RAF uniform. oh my God. he just “came into his inheritance” and they’re going to drink to that? OK. Is this new information?

😂 James: “I’ve just come into my inheritance.”

Sylvia: “How wonderful. Come inside.”

Audience: HUGH, SHE JUST BIT A BOY SCOUT ON THE DICK. DO NOT DRINK ANYTHING.

35:24

There were some language issues too. he said something about “scotch” around outside, meaning to do harm, and she said, “speaking of, would you like some scotch” and that’s why he got invited in. then she asked what your poison, and he said “Brandy” and I’m like what happened to scotch.

I mean, I have heard people call it Scotch Brandy, but I believe that’s a misnomer?

😆 Scotch whisky is distilled primarily from malted barley and/or other grains and matured in Scotland. Brandy is distilled from wine or other fermented fruit. So if James asks for “a brandy,” he has definitely not accepted Sylvia’s implied offer of Scotch.

35:40

“My passion is snakes and ladders.” And James says “playing with oneself can’t be that much fun, surely.”

😂 That’s not even subtext. Sylvia says her passion is Snakes and Ladders, a game that normally requires another player, and James immediately fires back: “Playing with oneself can’t be that much fun, surely.” That is absolutely a masturbation joke delivered in Maximum Early Hugh Grant Mode—polite diction, mild expression, filthy implication tucked neatly inside it

35:50

He Very politely refuses to play the game with her and then just casually, with absolutely no thought about it, lies down on the pillow she has on the floor, in lieu of actual furniture, as though that’s the most natural thing in the world.

😂 Sylvia’s room has this bizarre “furniture is a bourgeois affectation” aesthetic—vast expanses of floor, cushions scattered around, enormous architectural features, and apparently a front entrance requiring mountaineering. And James accepts all of it instantly.

A multi-million-pound budget, and not a loveseat or sofa in sight

😂 £3.2 MILLION.

Giant worm skull: ✓

RAF uniforms: ✓

Psychedelic Jesus nightmare: ✓

Stone sacrificial bathtub: ✓

Thigh-high latex snake-lady boots: ✓

Snakes and Ladders: ✓

Chair: ✗

Loveseat: absolutely not

Single step at the front door: Are you trying to bankrupt Vestron Films?

36:38

OK, they’re referencing some disappearance by the parents of the girls. She is playing it coy, and he is like “I know it was you, woman”

😂 Mary and Eve Trent’s parents disappeared about a year earlier. Their father’s pocket watch later turned up in Stonerich Cavern, near Sylvia’s Temple House, which is why James suspects that the disappearances, the cave, and the worm legend are connected.

36:58

With much trilling of the Rs, Sylvia says “to lose one’s parents can be a terrible loss. to lose one’s parent can be considered a misfortune, to lose both looks like carelessness.

😂 Sylvia is doing Oscar Wilde! She’s riffing on Lady Bracknell’s famous line from The Importance of Being Earnest: “To lose one parent … may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”

37:11

And then she points out to him that it was from Oscar Wilde, the importance of being earnest and he just looks like Hugh Grant, morosely.

😆 Not confused. Not impressed. Just that Hugh Grant face that says, I deeply regret having come over for brandy. And meanwhile, somewhere in this house, a policeman is still in the bathtub. 😆

Glub glu….

These two are in two completely different movies. She is playing it to the Hilt. He’s going, yeah, OK sure, why not?

😂 Amanda Donohoe is acting at about 145% capacity: every R gets trilled, every look has venom in it, every line is THEATRE, every movement says I AM THE SERPENT PRIESTESS OF UNSPEAKABLE LUST.

And Hugh Grant is giving maybe 38%: Mm. Yes. Rather. Brandy’s nice. Floor’s comfortable. You’re probably a murderer. Carry on.

38:00

Amanda “I am chewing the scenery.” Hugh “Well, I regret to inform you that I am not scenery.”

😂😂 That is exactly their acting dynamic. Somewhere offscreen Kevin: glub. 🫧

38:18

Oh my now she is straight up lying to him. “As a child. I was bitten by a snake, was in a coma for 10 days, ever since I’ve had an aversion for them.”

😂 Lady. Your stated passion five minutes ago was SNAKES AND LADDERS. Your house is basically Serpent IKEA. You stole the enormous worm skull. You lovingly fondled it. You have snake jewelry, snake imagery, snake everything, and you just gave a policeman the world’s least reassuring bath. And she’s delivering this to James with the confidence of someone who assumes he has suffered catastrophic short-term memory loss during the brandy.

Meanwhile James’s entire performance remains: Mm. Childhood trauma. Yes. Explains everything. Do go on. 😐

38:30

She followed it up with. “I’m also fascinated with them. I’m afraid I’m terribly schizophrenic.” Oh my God! understating, from her?

😂 THAT is her idea of dialing it down!

39:00

She just put her board game in the fire

😂 James has apparently made such an impression that she’s gone from seductive serpent hostess to rage-quitting Milton Bradley.

39:17

“Rosebud” She literally said “Rosebud” as the board game burned!

😂 ROSEBUD! Citizen Kane: burns Rosebud, symbol of a lost childhood. Lady Sylvia: burns Snakes and Ladders, symbol of… whatever the hell is happening in this house.

39:36

They kiss, she passionately, he, oh, was that something on my lips?

😂😂 She is giving him THE KISS—full Lady Sylvia, maximum serpentine passion—and James receives it like someone has accidentally brushed him with a damp napkin. She thinks she’s in an erotic gothic horror. He thinks he’s waiting for the kettle to boil?

40:06

And he’s watching, there’s something on TV an old black-and-white with an egg that’s not an egg but a snake made out out of I guess papier-mâché and a big old papier-mâché egg. Oh I don’t know what’s going on.

😂 I know exactly why you’ve reached “I don’t know what’s going on” again. The movie briefly earned your trust and has now spent it all.

40:32

Oh, it was a caterpillar, it came back out of the egg, which I now understand to be a cocoon, out came a woman with butterfly wings.

There is no way that Ken found a valid ancient black-and-white silent with that content. He made it and then aged it to look like it was an ancient so that he could put it in his movie.

😂 Ken didn’t fake that footage. You just watched a genuinely ancient movie. It’s from Georges Méliès’s 1901 short The Brahmin and the Butterfly (La Chrysalide et le Papillon d’or).

40:41

And now paintings on the wall. there’s a knight cutting off the head of a snake, and he’s dreaming of walking into a straight up roadrunner cave. You know you draw it like it’s a cave and you can walk into it and he’s back in uniform. he was in bed. He’s walking up on the Concorde.

😂 Oh GOD, we’ve entered James’s dream, and apparently his subconscious has hired Wile E. Coyote as production designer.

41:40

I think that is Sylvia as the stewardess at the door. oh my God.

😂😂 OH, COME ON, KEN. The fact that it’s Concorde is killing me. A normal airplane simply wasn’t sufficiently Freudian or expensive looking for this dream.

42:13

And he’s drawing on the crossword puzzle a snake pattern because that’s what the shape on the puzzle was. he didn’t force it on it. It was actually there as blank space, in a snake figure.

😂 And he’s still Hugh Granting his way through it like, Yes, yes, serpent motif, terribly clever.

And so far, it’s three different actresses as flight attendant two blondes, and one Sylvia. So. Mary, Eve, and Sylvia.

42:28

And Sylvia is now giving a drink to an old woman who is tied up in the seat. You deserve a picture

42:28

😂 James’s subconscious has apparently invented Concorde: Serpent Cult Class.

That’s got to be the woman parent that’s missing it. It’s got to be something on his mind cause that’s what he was investigating.

Oh, I think I’m following A PLOT.

42:44

Boom, the father!

42:44

😂 And of course Dream Sylvia is still providing impeccable cabin service to the people James suspects she did something horrible to.

42:54

43:08

She lifted her hem purposefully, before she sat on the arm of that chair

43:09

😂 Sylvia: LEG.

James: 🐍 crossword.

Sylvia: MORE LEG.

James: Yes, apparently seven across is serpent.

These two remain committed to starring in completely different films even inside his own dream.

43.20

Oh, now he’s got a belt on him and she’s trying to feed him some alcohol and somebody—oh, the second blonde stewardess, Eve—grabbed the drink from her and Sylvia made it spill and Eve is now burning. Evidently, it was acidic, and they’re fighting, and Sylvia has her legs around Eve’s head and he’s got the red pen in his hand, evidently that’s significant, (nope) and they are still fighting. The girls are fighting and the platinum blond stewardess, Mary, is still giving instructions about exits and stuff.

😂

“In the unlikely event of an emergency—” MA’AM. THE EMERGENCY IS CURRENTLY WRESTLING IN THE AISLE.

44:27

Jesus, extending one leg out and wiggling it seductively?!? And a RING!

44:30

44:31

The ring is significant was what that pose was.

44:47

And he got off the plane and was immediately in a cave, and he found the pocket watch again.

😂 considering where you were 20 minutes ago. The movie is still completely nuts, but we’re now actually following its nuts.

44:57

His man-servant comes in, makes a lot of noise. “Confound it. You have broken my dream.” “Perhaps it was for the best” “Yeah, I’m not going to make it to the breakfast table, Peters.”

😂 And Hugh delivers that like the dream wasn’t Concorde bondage, acid attacks, serpent crosswords, missing parents, Sylvia wrestling flight attendants, and a magic cave.

45:34

“Very well, my lord”, with the thinly disguised contempt of a manservant that was part of a will.

😂 That “Very well, my lord” has layers.

45:50

Halfway, halfway through

😂 HALFWAY. That is astonishing. We’ve already had the giant worm skull, venom Jesus, the nun nightmare, harmonica snake charming, Kevin’s catastrophic bath, Wilde quotations, Snakes and Ladders immolation, Hugh Grant’s imperviousness to seduction, a genuine 1901 Méliès film, the Road Runner cave, Concorde, restrained missing parents, acid cabin service, stewardess combat, the serpent crossword, Significant Ring™, the pocket watch, and Peters’ contempt. And Ken Russell has another half of the movie left.

46:44

They are now spelunking in the very cave that his ancestors did something with the worm, or did battle with the worm, I think. is what he actually said, but I said did something because well it’s even less specific than did battle with. (My own expressed inner monologue is now as confused as the movie.)

😂 “Did something with the worm” is actually safer wording for this movie, because at this point I would not want to commit to the nature of anyone’s relationship with a giant worm.

52:02

OK, they’re out of the cave and Sylvia is in a tree wearing, Oh my God, those are long red leather boots, calling down at Eve.

Those boots are so high that they might be giving her a gynecological exam.

52:02

😂 Those have crossed the line from thigh-high boots into torso-adjacent footwear. At that point the cobbler isn’t measuring an inseam; he’s requesting a medical history and asking whether you’ve fasted. 😆

53:02

We now have boobs girl in a tanning booth. It was Sylvia in the tanning booth, and her boobs came out.

😂 THERE IT IS. thigh-high boots → even higher red boots → tanning booth → wardrobe department clocks out entirely. Ken Russell apparently reached the tanning-booth scene and thought, Sunlight? No, no. My snake woman shall be baked artificially. 😆

53:24

Sylvia just confessed that she’s immortal and that she knew Eve back in the days of her lover, blah blah blah blah blah so if Eve’s not immortal, she’s evidently a reincarnating soul and Sylvia recognizes her

53:37

And evidently, she has mesmerized Eve to tell her to take off her clothes, and Eve’s just calmly doing that no resistance on her face at all

You would think that if someone’s soul is continually reincarnated, they would have a stronger willpower. I mean, that’s what’s bringing them back one would assume, and yet, Sylvia “just do this” “OK”

😂 If reincarnation is the soul repeatedly clawing its way back into existence, you’d expect Eve’s soul to have accumulated at least a few points in Mesmerism Resistance.

Instead:

SOUL: I have crossed centuries. Death cannot contain me. I return again and again.

SYLVIA: Take off your clothes.

SOUL: Well, those are compelling instructions.

54.17

😂 THAT FACE.

54:25

54:28

Oh, there’s some contempt! “When your order tried to build a convent on top of my sacred temple” with the rising intonation while she’s holding up a rather threatening-looking, I’m going to guess, sexual appliance.

54:40

Sylvia said “that’s enough” because Eve had already taken off everything except the shirt, and she said she doesn’t want her to catch her death of cold. She obviously wants her to catch the death of that huge horn shoved into her, in some fashion.

Plus, she’s the only one that had nudity in her contract.

😆 And that object is so aggressively phallic that I’m not going to pretend Ken Russell didn’t know exactly what visual association he was creating.

Sylvia keeps talking about the Virgins and you know, the Catholic faith so that’s got to be what’s going to be happening. Sexual non-innuendo.

😆 that’s where the scene is pointing symbolically, at minimum. She’s repeatedly invoking virginity, Christianity, and the desecration/replacement of her older serpent religion, while Eve is apparently connected to that ancient conflict through her previous incarnation. So Sylvia isn’t just being sexually threatening for the hell of it. In her own mythology, Eve seems to represent the Christian virgin figure/enemy from the old days, and Sylvia is reenacting or reversing something from that conflict.

This is a question I should’ve asked earlier, but is Eve a nun? Literally, when did that information become part of the movie?

55:13

“Virgins… are really… eligible… for human… sacrifice.”

55:30

They did not show anything, but she made the motion like she was moving that horn and Eve made a gasp and this is the look on Sylvia’s face

55:31

55:40

“You have been a good girl Eve.” “You will have the pleasure of being sacrificed to Dionin alive now. Where did you tell the others you were going?”

56:13

And she just told Eve to make excuses to her sister, that things are too much, and the phone’s on the bar, so, go do that now.

56:54

“I’m going to London… for a few days of peace and quiet… on my own.” Eve keeps staring at her ring, which is making me think she’s about to break out of the mesmerism: Oh, what’s going on? I don’t want to die. I’m predicting that part. The ring is where I paused.

57:27

She started to say what was really going on to Mary on the phone, and Sylvia came out with the big old teeth, spit at her and now she’s in the middle of another vision.

😂 Eve gets as far as mechanically delivering Sylvia’s cover story, the ring catches her attention, and suddenly the script Sylvia installed starts failing. Eve begins telling the truth—and Sylvia immediately goes FULL FANGS, spits at her, and throws her straight back into Vision Land. That makes the ring even more interesting. We now have two separate moments where the movie has deliberately emphasized it: James’s dream singled it out, and now Eve looking at it appears to disrupt Sylvia’s control. Whatever the explanation eventually is, that is absolutely not incidental jewelry.

57:31

Ken Russell Screensaver™

57:32

57:29

Nuns on spikes, nuns dead, Sylvia giving blow job to big stick thing, bare breasted. Jesus hovering in the middle of the sky

😂 YES. The Ken Russell Screensaver™ has achieved FINAL FORM.

57:43

And Sylvia just took the ring off of Eve’s finger and Eve’s twitching like she’s in the midst of a seizure, which I guess she is.

😂 So the ring has now had a very deliberate little trajectory: James’s dream: RING, LOOK AT THIS. Eve under hypnosis: notices ring → starts breaking Sylvia’s script. Sylvia: venom-spits her into Apocalypse Screensaver. Afterward: takes the ring away.

58:03

58:03

Oh, that is Eve’s sister because she’s right by the phone. Logic rules! (Oh no, I’m understanding this movie!)

58:11

And look at that guy with the glasses he kind of looks like what Hugh Grant would look like if he tousled his hair and put on glasses

😂 I know we saw this guy before. I think he’s the archaeology student who found the skull originally. (He’s played by Peter Capaldi, the Twelfth Doctor!)

58:40

“Is that you Ray? yes Roy I, meant Roy. It’s me, Mary Trent at Mercy farm” she’s not smooth

59:16

Roy is at the train yard I think because she’s asking him to look at the yard the whole thing to see if his sister’s there

59:37

Mary just ran off randomly to go look outside the front door and Angus took over the phone. Roy had no sign of her and was given instructions to call Mercy Farm if news does come.

1:00:03

Angus gave the instructions and was going to give the message to Mary but then Mary came back in and said none of Eve’s clothes are gone.

Right about now I’m realizing the Concord dream was making more sense, the three girls fighting for his soul? Or no, his attention? OK, not sense, but semblance of sense. More so than the rest of the movie.

1:01:08

Angus: “The Romans often assimilated ethnic religions into their own. The skull could’ve been venerated as a sacred object.” Mary: “What’s all this got to do with Eve?” James: “Quite a lot when you consider that hallucination.” A: “Aye, she saw the snake then, right enough.” M: “And a cross, don’t forget that. She doesn’t go to church or any of that stuff, but she’s quite religious is Eve.” J: “It seems to me there’s some kind of conflict going on here. If Angus is right and it’s also the site of a convent then it’s conflict between Christianity and some early pagan cult. Possibly even involving human sacrifice.” A: “The cave drawing would indicate that.” M: “You’re not suggesting…” J: “Which way would Eve have walked home?” M: “Through the Grove, of course it’s the only footpath.” J: “And why is Temple House so called?” M: “Everyone knows that from school. It’s the site of an old temple. It’s obvious from the name.” J: “The same way. It’s obvious that Stonerich Cavern has something to do with the D’Ampton worm.” A: “Maybe there’s a connection.” M: “You’ll be saying there’s a connection between all this and Erny’s snakebite, next.” J: “And Snakes and Ladders.” A: “What do you mean snakes and ladders?” J: “Lady. Sylvia. Marsh.”

Dammit, there is a plot

But there is still no logical reason for those parents who have disappeared if Sylvia is not sacrificing him what is that about?

1:02:05

OK, this is funny. He’s digging through this record collection, and he’s asking Peters. “Well my father had something about the ‘soliloquy of a snake charmer’ and I can’t seem to find it and of course Peters is like dithering, so I’m going to have to guess that Peters is actually a snake guy and he hid that.

1:02:25

Take it back Peters is actually helping. He told him to flip the record over and there was, the snake charmer thing.

1:03:27

This is evidence that this movie would not work in a modern setting. You can’t flip a CD over, maybe you can flip a cassette tape over, you can’t flip an 8-track over. You certainly can’t flip a Spotify over.

1:03:43

“Put your bicycle clips on, Peters. I’m expecting company.”

😂 But bicycle clips is the detail that kills me. Presumably he’s thinking practical protection against something slithering up the trouser legs, but it sounds like the most aggressively British monster-hunting preparation imaginable.

1:03:47

If that is not Photoshop, I’m a monkey’s uncle

😂 Since this is 1988, not Photoshop in the literal sense—but absolutely the analog/video-effects equivalent. Look at those enormous modern red speaker towers planted behind the ancient-looking ruins against that impossibly saturated blue sky. The scale, edges, lighting, and perspective aren’t even pretending they’re sharing physical space.

1:03:51

Why is there a dinosaur?

1:03:54

1:03:57

Why was she in the basket at all?

1:04:04

1:04:09

Snake: charmed?

1:04:20

1:04:33

She has exited the building following the music and they’re lurking outside going to sneak in while she’s gone. Oh, this is straight up Scooby-Doo now.

If they say Jinkies, I’m gonna screenshot that for you

1:04:35

😂 The Lair of the White Worm (1988) An unauthorized adults-only episode of Scooby-Doo in which Daphne became an immortal snake dominatrix and Fred is Hugh Grant with bicycle clips. And they’d have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for those meddling archaeologists and their gramophone record. 😂

1:04:55

There was this long exchange where Angus is looking at this emperor statue and Mary’s like “loads of people have emperors” “Not of this one, this was the great rebel emperor, which of course I’ve never heard of so it’s got to be a movie invention and Lady Sylvia has them in her parlor so yeah, OK significant

😂 They’re talking about Marcus Carausius, a real Roman military commander who seized power in Britain and northern Gaul in the late third century and effectively ruled there as a breakaway emperor. The movie even established Sylvia’s connection earlier when she called Carausius her lover. The dialogue here explicitly connects the statue to the Carausius coins Angus found at the dig.

Dammit. There continues to be a plot.

1:05:45

“What is it?” “It’s a mongoose, traditional enemy of the snake.” they paused very significantly, that’s going to have to come in. That is Chekhov’s mongoose.

1:05:45

Of course, if Chekhov’s mongoose is just introduced, then this is the beginning of the movie.

😂 ACT ONE, SCENE ONE: Here is a mongoose. It kills snakes. Remember that. Ken Russell: Nah. Give me an hour first. I have Concorde, naked Jesus, Roman nuns, venom hallucinations, Hugh Grant on the floor, and a virginity-testing horn to get through.

Then, with maybe a third of the movie left: “By the way—MONGOOSE.”

Chekhov is sitting in the audience looking at his watch.

1:06:11

OK, very confused. We just saw Sylvia dance out of the house and yet now she is there calmly watching a person giving a blow job using a snake as the dildo on TV.

1:06:11

1:06:38

Ooooooooh it’s the mom!

1:06:43

1:06:47

Uh oh, mom is a big snake woman now and just bit Mary in the neck

😂 OH SHIT. MOM DIDN’T JUST GO MISSING. MOM GOT RECRUITED.

1:06:56

Angus grabbed a stick out of the fire, did not burn himself. His hands flashed it at the mom, and she ran out of the room, then he just tossed it back in the fire. quite efficient and Mary is now having a hallucination.

😆And now Mary is hallucinating, so the neck bite definitely had an immediate supernatural effect of some kind. We’re back in KEN RUSSELL SCREENSAVER™ MODE.

1:07:00

1:07:01

1:07:02

And Dudes are running out of that big blue face, it’s just weird

1:07:02

1:07:05

1:07:09

JESUS CHRIST. 😂😂😂 KEN RUSSELL SCREENSAVER™: DIRECTOR’S CUT.

Well, licking some toads can cause hallucinations, why not snakes?

😂 On the Ken Russell pharmacology scale, it’s practically conservative. At least the movie has now established the rule consistently. Sylvia venomed Eve: Ken Russell Screensaver™. Snake Mom bites Mary: Ken Russell Screensaver™. I cannot believe I’m saying this, but the hallucinations have continuity. 😂

1:07:50

Peters Has Had Enough

1:08:19

He just told Peters to unlock the front door and lock up the chambermaids, look at the look on his face.

1:08:27

😂😂 PETERS. Look at him. That is the face of a man whose employment contract has finally exceeded its reasonable scope. James has essentially said: Unlock the front door. Lock up the chambermaids. I’m calling the police about the immortal snake cult. And Peters’s expression is just “Very good, sir. I see the estate has become fucking ridiculous.”😂

“Your father was strange, but he never had me lock up the chambermaids. This might be fun.”

1:08:37

In the midst of calling the police, the power went out in the place, and it’s of course a cordless phone, and it loses connection, because, of course, there’s no battery backup. Oh my God! That’s a huge sword he picked up off the fireplace mantel—and he just chopped the mom snake woman in half.

1:08:54

1:08:55

1:06:56

1:08:57

he heard the crowing of the woman, he saw the sword sitting on the mantelpiece, put the phone down, picked up the sword she came charging in and, and then chop chop.

1:09:10

1:09:10

I’m not dead yet. but look at you. You’re missing a leg. No I’m not, just a scratch.

😂😂😂 “I’M NOT DEAD YET!” This is absolutely Black Knight territory now. Look at the frame! Her legs are literally over there, detached from the rest of the woman, and she’s still crawling forward like this is merely an inconvenience.

James: I have cut you in half.

Snake Mom: “I’ve had worse.”

James: You haven’t got any legs.

Snake Mom: “Yes I have.”

1:09:11

The legs are still twitching too

1:09:26

Oh no Peters is dead

Yes, snake bite marks on his face, so obviously mother came in and bit him to death. came after James, got chopped in half. She had an adventurous day too.

1:09:30

Power returns. The phone rings. “Yes, I got her, but not before she got Peters.” But it wasn’t who we were expecting either. Oh my God, her own daughter!”

1:09:58

“Yes, I extracted the poison before it’s any harm. She’s resting now” you know extra extracting poison is a myth unless you have like a syringe the whole cut two lines in it and suck with your mouth. That’s a total myth.

1:10:05

1:10:09

Oh, he knows this by somehow groking the venom. “if the venom gets some metabolizing in the system, they are afflicted by a form of vampirism”

1:10:21

He’s on the phone with Angus and he’s complaining that the power went out and the record player turned itself off automatically. All right I’ll check and he looks over and the record platter is completely empty. “Thanks for the warning. I think we have another reptile loose on the premises.” He’s still in another movie.

😂😂 YES. Hugh Grant absolutely refuses to enter this movie. Everybody else: “THE VENOM METABOLIZES INTO SNAKE VAMPIRISM! MOM HAS BEEN BISECTED! PETERS IS DEAD! THE CULT IS REAL!” James, discovering that the record has mysteriously vanished: “Thanks for the warning. I think we have another reptile loose on the premises.” Sir. 😂

1:10:53

The mother snake just grabbed his ankle and did a growling face at him. It was a quick scene so she’s crawled across the floor with just her arms to get to James, and he’s just like, oh OK.

😂😂 EXACTLY. She has no legs. She has dragged her bisected torso across the estate using only her arms, grabbed James by the ankle, and snarled up at him. And James’s emotional response remains somewhere around: “Ah. There you are.”

This man is aggressively unchewable scenery. Ken Russell can throw snake vampires, severed torsos, venom visions, missing parents, and dead servants at him, and Hugh Grant will not rise above mild concern at an irregularity in the household. The contrast with Snake Mom makes it even funnier. She has had the most exhausting night imaginable. She’s been bitten/converted, attacked her daughter, repelled by fire, killed Peters, been CUT IN HALF, and then dragged herself across the floor by her hands for one last attack. James: “Oh, bother. Another reptile.” 😂

1:11:16

Mary’s in there and now we’re gonna see if she has big old fangs.

1:11:32

No thanks and the door closed automatically so, oh but oh my

1:11:44

1:12:04

“We need you to identify the body.” “But why, you’ve known her for years.” “But we have to do it by the book. It must be next of kin.” Oh so evidently James looked at the growling mother and just went oh bother and kicked her in the head till she died. I’m just guessing on that part.

😂 That’s exactly the missing beat! We last saw half of Mom grab James’s ankle and growl at him, and now the police are apparently saying, “We need Mary to identify the body.” So somewhere between those scenes, Half-Mom became Dead-Mom, and the movie apparently decided we did not require the administrative details

. Your proposed reconstruction is entirely compatible with what we’ve actually seen:

Mom: GRRRR!
James: “Oh.”
offscreen aristocratic problem-solving noises
Police: “We need the next of kin to identify the body.” 😂

1:12:21

The cop did have a really weird look on his face. so, it was one of those, oh I’m a snake guy so I’m bluffing you or something. I don’t know yet.

Let’s talk budget again a VW bug for a police car no lights just a label

😂 That is absolutely budget filmmaking.

😂 A Volkswagen Beetle with “POLICE” slapped on the door and apparently not even a light bar. The production said: “We need a police car.” “How much?” “£0.” “There’s a Beetle outside.” “Paint POLICE on it.”

Anyone got a car?” “I’ve got an old bug out back” “Let’s just put on a sticker. That’ll work”.

1:13:08

1:13:43

“Where are you going? This isn’t the way to the police station.” “We’re picking up lady Sylvia Marsh.”

1:14:23

1:14”41

Policeman had a bandage over his wrist and so Mary just opened the door and evidently knocked him all the way across the space between the car in the house and now she’s running away.

1:14:14

And the gate just closed on her

1:15:02

She runs down some steps on the side of the house. It goes to a passageway. She gets to the end of the passageway. There’s a big snake. She turns around and there’s a cop following her. She doesn’t know what to do.

1:15:08

Snake Cop confirmed

1:15:08

1:15:13

Someone is playing bagpipes.

1:15:26

1:15:26

Angus is a piper?

1:15:46

1:16:14

He’s got the snake charming going

1:16:22

This actor playing the cop is hilarious. He’s swaying like a snake. He’s prancing around like a snake and his teeth are just out there, and you can tell the actor’s afraid of closing his mouth because he will stab his lower mouth and it would hurt a lot. Oh God, Angus ran out of breath on bagpipes, which makes no sense. And then dropped the bagpipes, and then oh that is the significant thing there? it’s called a compass an, outdoor compass and Angus is going to knock the cop onto it and no more snake cop.

1:16:58

Angus ran out of breath on a bagpipe, which makes no sense because that’s what the bag is for! When you breathe you squeeze the bag, but no, he ran out of breath that broke the music. The cop went after him. He dropped the bagpipes he pushed at the cop; the cop tripped on the bagpipes and fell on the compass.

1:16:58

1:17:02

Fortunately, the bagpipes aren’t broken. He’s back to playing them.

1:18:08

He had to sit down, but look, he even dressed up in tartans to match his bagpipes. Now he’s filling a syringe with something amber.

1:18:23

1:18:30

Oh, he’s gonna inject himself with the venom. Oh, this is so bad of an idea.

1:18:47

Maybe he shot the mongoose?

1:18:47

1:19:19

1:19:26

And she reared back and looked at Angus in the face and he just stood there and then she reared up further then bit him on the leg. and well look at this look. I’ll bet it was anti-venom and he injected himself with it!

1:19:31

Look! Ear plugs!

1:19:35

And she just laughingly took the earplugs out of her ears. She outsmarted him, she thinks.

1:19:40

And he has his face frozen in a rictus of pain and she drags him by one leg into her lair, but I’m guessing he’s acting right now. You know he wants to get to Eve.

1:19:51

1:19:51

I wonder if being blue-painted nekkid pays at a lower rate than regular nekkid. Oh, hello, Mary.

1:20:02

1:20:21

So, uh, budget: cop car zero, snake contacts £12,000,000

😂 The production budget hierarchy of this movie:

Sarah: “Can we afford a cop?”

Production: “No.”

Cop car: “Absolutely not.”

Snake contacts: “How much?”

Production: “Twelve billion pounds.” “Order whatever you want.”

And those eyes! They apparently spent the entire effects budget on one pair of radioactive contact lenses. 😂

And Sylvia has also exceeded any breast budget I’ve ever seen in any movie. She is just out there completely for this half of the movie.

1:20:24

1:20:41

OK, James is up to something with a bunch of cylinders. I don’t even know.

1:20:44

1:20:51

Oh, they think it’s a subterranean creature and they will gas or smoke them out because there’s pumps and evidently some kind of toxic gas in those cylinders.

😂 The funniest part is that they’re treating this like a perfectly normal pest-control job. “Yes, there’s a giant supernatural serpent beneath the house. Fetch the industrial fumigation equipment.” 😂

1:21:19

OK now Ken has established that Dionin was the original serpent in the Garden of Eden.

1:21:08

The girls can hear James’ voice through the pit as he’s on the other side of it extolling to the workers with him.

1:21:15

1:21:15

Dionin, who came from the darkness,

Dionin, who dwelt in the peace of the Garden of Eden,

Dionin, who gave us the gift of knowledge,

Dionin, who suffered the wrath of the false God,

Dionin, who was driven from Eden by the false God,

Dionin, who was trodden underfoot by the Son of Man,

Dionin, who returned to the darkness,

Dionin, whose kingdom is darkness,

Dionin, who makes safe our darkness,

Dionin, who is darkness,

Dionin the immortal, accept this, our sacrifice.

1:22:22

1:22:22

Not even trying to be subtle with this!

😂 Positioned on the front of her pelvis, emerging from the pubic area, and it looks much more like some bizarre snake/serpent appendage growing out of her pubis. Which raises the immediate biological question: If she’s supposed to be a serpent creature, why does she still have a completely mammalian female body? The movie’s answer appears to be: don’t ask biology questions during the glowing-blue snake-goddess sequence. And the fact that it is specifically coming out of that location makes the whole image considerably more… Freudian than I initially realized. 😳

1:22:26

And Eve is right now saying “OK, exactly how am I being sacrificed?”

😂 Eve has reached the completely reasonable point of the evening: “Okay, you’ve explained the ancient serpent theology, you’ve tied me to a wall, you’ve announced my sacrificial destiny… but could someone perhaps explain the actual mechanics?” And Sylvia is probably about to give her an answer that somehow involves Dionin, darkness, blood, and several more paragraphs of Victorian occult poetry rather than simply saying, “We’re going to kill you.”

At this point Eve deserves a pamphlet. 😂

1:22:48

Smoke, or gas coming up from this pit? James, is that you?

1:22:50

1:22:55

Sylvia was in pre-ecstatic face and instead went to confused face, and there is now smoke coming out of the pit.

1:22:59

“No time for ritual, no time for ceremony” and Sylvia pulls out a big old knife, and she’s probably going to just stab Eve now.

1:23:00

Using the knife to cut Eve’s ropes free so I guess she’s gonna toss her into that pit

1:23:15

In case you can’t quite tell, it’s a great big snake

1:23:32

The big snake is coming out of the big pit.

1:23:35

1:23:35

That is a spectacular shot: Sylvia, big ol’ pit, big honking snake.

1:23:41

1:23:41

That knife is not sharp enough. Seems like that should be a minimum requirement for a big honking knife: sharpness.

1:24:03

And now Angus is making his triumphant move. It’s been about 10 minutes, but maybe it took a while for the antivenom to work.

1:24:06

1:24:15

Angus first just pushed Sylvia into the pit, she grabbed Eve’s legs, then Angus just pulled out his own dagger and sawed at Sylvia’s wrists that are holding Eve’s ankles. Yeah, cutting a wrist is so much easier than a rope. OK

1:24:30

Oh, big snake on the rise

1:24:43

Wrist severed, Sylvia now gets munched by her god.

1:24:43

1:24:45

The rope snapped just as Eve was about to fall. Angus caught her just in time. Sylvia went into the snake’s mouth. Poor Sylvia from snake goddess to snake sacrifice.

😂 SYLVIA GOT SNAKED BY THE SNAKE. She spent the whole movie working toward this grand serpent-sacrifice moment, finally gets Eve positioned over the mouth, and then the rope snaps at exactly the wrong/right moment:

Eve: rescued.

Angus: heroically catches her.

Sylvia: whoops, into the giant snake mouth you go.

That is spectacularly appropriate. She literally spent all that time worshipping the thing and then became the backup sacrifice.

1:25:10

Angus goes down and unties Mary. There we go and honestly, the way he just manipulated that rope, without a knife, and untied her, she should’ve been able to do that a long time ago.

1:25:14

He tells them both to run, but he’s going back. So, I don’t know why he’s going back but he’s going back to do something with the snake, I don’t know.

1:25:26

He has a pineapple hand grenade.

1:25:36

He sees the big honking snake close up, says “holy shit,” pulls the ring out with his teeth, of course, drops it in. Bull’s-eye runs away explosion from the pit everyone’s outside now safely.

1:26:18

Yep, he just explained it all he filled up the syringe and he’s giving her an antidote and they said “what if it won’t work” “it worked on me all right”

1:26:51

1:26:51

Proof that he’s in a different movie

1:27:03

And he literally said “Next it’s a pint on me at the pub.” So we still don’t actually know what he was doing in the caverns. I’m going to guess he gassed him and maybe that’s what was driving the snake up, but he didn’t communicate that to them, so it works surprisingly well as a coordinated plan that they were not coordinated with.

😂 It somehow becomes a coordinated operation conducted entirely without coordination.

The sequence seems to be: James’s caving/exploration team is down there with the gas equipment, apparently trying to flush out whatever they think is living underground. Angus independently figures out that Sylvia is the real danger, develops the antidote, gets himself bitten, infiltrates the lair, rescues Eve, and blows up the pit.

• Neither side appears to have bothered telling the other what they’re actually doing.

• Yet the two plans happen to intersect at exactly the right moment.

• Then James’s team emerges and he’s basically: “Thanks. Pint at the pub?”

• James says he wanted to do something positive like the old man or the ancestors and Angus said you smoked out the snake and did a good job. Thanks so yeah coordination was there unspoken like with real men

• Exposition dump: It was the watch since it disappeared from the temple house and reappeared in the cavern, that had to be a connection, etc., so forth.

1:29:42

Angus just got a call from the lab: “You were given the wrong serum. It’s for arthritis.”

1:29:55

So, oh, Angus is now gonna sprout some fangs, I’ll bet.

1:30:10

OH, THERE IT IS. 😂 That is not the face of a man who received the correct anti-venom. Angus has gone from “I have a cunning plan” to “why are my eyes glowing and what is happening to my neck?”

So the sequence is apparently:

Get bitten by the snake.

Extract venom.

Inject “antidote.”

Rescue Eve.

Blow up the ancient snake.

Discover the laboratory mailed you the wrong serum.

Look in mirror: “Oh, bollocks.”

He was also running his tongue along the roof of his mouth so looking for fangs, I think

1:30:57

In the car, James says “I’m famished why don’t we stop for a bite” and Angus replies “Why not” and then bares his leg where the two bites are and it goes to black

Absolutely insane I made it through

You should hear this song they’re playing as the credits roll.

The D’Ampton Worm

1:33:11

One, two, three, four—

John D’Ampton went a-fishing once,

a-fishing in the weir.

He caught a fish upon his hook; he thought it looked mighty queer.

Now what the kind of fish it was John D’Ampton couldn’t tell,

but he didn’t like the look of it so he threw it down a well,

Now the worm got fat and growed,

and growed an awful size with great big teeth and a great big mouth and great big goggle eyes.

And when at night it crawled about,

all looking for some booze.

If it felt dry upon the road,

it’d milk a dozen cows.

This fearful worm would often feed on cows and lambs and sheep,

and swallow little babes alive when they lay down to sleep.

So John set out and got the beast and cut it into halves,

and that soon stopped it eating babes and sheep and lambs and calves.

So now you know how all the folks on both sides of the weir,

lost lots of sheep and lots of sleep and lived in mortal fear.

So drink the health of brave Sir John,

who kept the babes from harm,

saved cows and calves by making halves of that famous D’Ampton Worm!