The Lair of the White Worm (1988)

Altered States (1980)

 

A psycho-physiologist experiments with drugs and a sensory-deprivation tank and has visions he believes are genetic memories.

From memory: Audacious sci-fi horror film deliciously goes way over the top with wildly imaginative, bizarre and exciting psychedelic scenes that seem to emulate a hallucinogenic trip; William Hurt's overheated performance fully fits the bill.

Halliwell*: "Amusing elaboration of Jekyll and Hyde, not to mention the Karloff mad doctor second features of the forties. All very po-faced now, and certainly impeccably done."

Maltin**1/2: "Talky and cerebral at first, then turns into a cross between THE WOLF MAN and THE TIME MACHINE, using state-of-the-art special effects. More successful as an assault on the senses than as a film, with thoroughly unappealing protagonists and a ludicrous story resolution. Paddy Chayefsky disowned his adaptation of his novel..." 

The Lair of the White Worm (1988)

The Boy Friend (1971)

The Devils (1971)

In 17th-century France, Father Urbain Grandier seeks to protect the city of Loudun from the corrupt establishment of Cardinal Richelieu, but hysteria occurs within the city when he is accused of witchcraft by a sexually repressed nun.

Over-the-top blasphemous and deliberately in bad taste, this infamous movie seems likewise as possessed and fevered as the hysteria it depicts.

Halliwell**: "Despite undeniable technical proficiency this is its writer-director's most outrageously sick film to date, campy, idiosyncratic and in howling bad taste from beginning to end, full of worm-eaten skulls, masturbating nuns, gibbering courtiers, plague sores, rats and a burning to death before our very eyes...plus a sacrilegious dream of Jesus."

Maltin**1/2: "Fine performances save confused mixture of history, comedy, and surrealism...A mad movie, with fiery finale not for the squeamish."