Is Ken Russell's CRIMES OF PASSION (now on Blu-ray/director's cut) as bad as we thought?

Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes! But you know what? With time -- 32 years -- the movie seems to have become a lot more fun. Not nearly as much fun as, say, Russ Meyer's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, though the two films have things in common. Both want to get us all bigtime hot-and-bothered, while simultaneously teaching us the right pathway to pursue. Meyer's is the much better of the two films, though Ken Russell's over-the-top movie (the filmmaker is shown below) has its own special charm -- and a couple of very hot actors in the leading roles.

We forget how incredibly gorgeous and sexy (and talented) was its leading lady Kathleen Turner, just three years off Body Heat when CRIMES OF PASSION was released (1984). Co-star John Laughlin was in his prime at the time, too, and he makes one hot hunk of beefcake in the role of a horny husband whose wife (Annie Potts) wants nothing to do with him in the sack. Mr. Russell made a number of good movies in his time (his bio films for the BBC about artists constitute his best work), but this one is not among them.

Ms Turner plays a smart and sexy young woman who goes by the name of Joanna Crane at her day job in the garment industry; by night she's China Blue (above), a hot-looking whore with a rather low-end clientele who is menaced (though she does not seem to realize this for quite some time) by a Bible-toting nutcase, played in his best-though-much-overused nutcase fashion by Anthony Perkins (below).

Into the mix comes Mr. Laughlin (below), hired to trail Turner due to some supposed industrial espionage, who falls prey to her charms and is soon banging her every which way, and at the same time, of course, falling in love with the gal.

And therein lies the biggest problem with Crimes of Passion. Every time Russell (along with the script, penned by Barry Sandler) gets serious, the movie goes south. Scenes evidently designed to comment on societal hypocrisy play like something written by and for Boy Scouts (granted, these Scouts have very dirty mouths), but then we get back to the sex-and-sin and come-on-in, and things get enjoyably hot-and-heavy once again. (Russell was always pretty good at giving us "shock value".)

Along the way, we see various of China Blue's clients in multitudinous positions -- most of which may have seemed shocking in their time but today seem more recherché than anything else.  By the time we get to the suspense-thriller finale, it's all so been-there/done-that, you'll see the "big surprise" coming a mile away.

Still, there is fun to be had in watching Turner strut her stuff and noting once again that Mr. Russell's would-be shocks can sometimes prove less transgressive than merely tired. The director's true home was either in those long-ago black-and-white biography films (his Savage Messiah is also pretty good) or in the fun-and-frolicsome genre of The Lair of the White Worm.

From Arrow Video (via MVD Entertainment Group) Crimes of Passion , running 107 minutes, hits the street on Blu-ray + DVD this coming Tuesday, July 19 (or maybe on July 26: I've been told two different street dates on this one), with a huge load of bonus materials, plus both the director's cut and the unrated version of the film included.
Click here for further details. 

LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM is back! Now, stream Ken Russell's juiciest, naughtiest, campiest treat

It's been decades since TrustMovies first viewed this little horror treat, brought to the screen by no less than Ken Russell, and starring a very young Hugh Grant, a very sexy Amanda Donohoe, a younger-than-you'll remem-ber-but-funny-as-ever Peter Capaldi and chock full of just about everything Mr. Russell loved to rub in our faces: trans-gressive sex, Christianity trashing and paganism, here joined by a delectably sexy fanged female, a giant snake, and other fun tropes most often found in the horror genre. THE LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM, I believe, is the only one of Russell's films that was a "pure" (or maybe impure) genre piece, though many movie buffs found many Russell movies horrors of another sort.

I've always had a mixed response to this filmmaker's work. (Mr. Russell, who died in 2011 at the age of 84, is shown at left). My favorites are his black-and-white musical biographies made for British television and his very interesting artist bio Savage Messiah. Now that I've seen Lair/Worm again, I must add it to that list of favorites, too. Ken probably ought to have tackled even more genre pieces, because what these film require, along with what Russell clearly had in spades -- the knack for bringing to the horror genre his special kind of transgression -- apparently produced that rare match made in sleazy-movie heaven.

The filmmaker guides his oddly assembled cast (which also includes the likes of Catherine Oxenberg (above, left), that adorable little blond Sammi Davis, (above, right) and everyone's favorite British oddity Paul Brooke (below) to pile on everything from horror to comedy, romance to adult/teen sex (and then teen murder) arriving at a destination that can only be called Camp Wonderful.

Just viewing that old and fondly remembered Vestron Pictures/Vestron Video logo should jolt a number of viewers back to a certain low-end-but-lots-of-fun memory lane. But Lair/Worm is so all-over-the-place that, if you are anything like me, and have not seen the film in decades, then you will also probably have forgotten so much of it that it will seem new and funny and pretty special all over again.

Mr Russell is not particularly good on suspense or surprise, and the villain is rather obvious from the start. But the filmmaker is so good on doing what he loves best -- shocking us with some heavy-duty fantasy elements that combine religion and sex (remember The Devils?) along with pairing Jesus (above) with, well, you'll see -- that the movie almost immediately assumes pride of place in the hearts of the irreligious.

Plus, there's Ms Donohoe, one of whose first major roles this was, and -- boy, oh, boy -- does she impress. So much so, in fact, that I am not sure anything she did subsequently registered quite so strongly. The actress gives her all, whether it's in black boots, panties and negligee (above) or sporting a set of fangs (below) that would have Dracula himself running for the hills.

Mr. Grant (below, left) is almost the straight man in the piece, and so is rather wasted by not being able to show much of his usual charm. Mr. Capaldi (below, right) has more fun with his role and actually registers more strongly here. But we're not coming to a Ken Russell film for charm or romance, are we? So lean back, hold on (yes, it is rather a bumpy ride), and enjoy the utterly bizarre, creepy and funny goings-on.

You can now stream The Lair of the White Worm via Netflix (click here for the link) or via Amazon Instant Video and on DVD.