The Lair

The movie opens with RAF pilot Kate Sinclair and her nameless WSO being shot down over Afghanistan somewhere. They are attacked by the Taliban (maybe). Her WSO is killed and she is forced to take refuge in a Soviet bunker that looks a lot like a buried cargo container. Once inside, she finds the plot of the movie.

This is a solidly middle of the road action horror movie. The creature costumes are pretty good for a low budget movie but the CGI blood is pretty bad. I will have to say that Jaimie Barber did a good job since I didn't even recognize him until about an hour into the movie. The rest is the cast is mostly pretty decent. The main exception is the female lead. She's very pretty but not much of an actor. I didn't believe for a second that she was an RAF pilot or even British for that matter. The action scenes are pretty well done and entertaining. The plot is mostly a pile of various tropes cliches but it's serviceable.

If you want an action horror movie where the characters fight monsters, this one is perfectly okay. It's not great but I have seen far worse.

Those were some of the worst accents I've ever heard across the board and they were so distracting that I have no idea if the movie was any good.

The script seemed choppy and unconvincing but I'm not entirely sure if it was actually bad or if I just couldn't get past the atrocious accents.

The story was slow and dragged it'd feet, the monsters felt repetitive, the entire premise felt forced and had no natural flow to it.

But seriously, in case I haven't hit this point enough, couldn't they cast people with authentic accents if they were unable to find anyone able to convincingly deliver on them?

There's a bunker from the past that Sinclair's found, a kind of Russian mutant store or beast compound, they're quite keen to open up, from your head down to your gut, make their residence above, not underground. The army has a post that's close at hand, Sinclair escapes and tells the man who's in command, about the place where evil thrives, you could say it's like a hive, but there's resistance to her claims and her demands.

Reminiscent of several films on a similar theme you will have encountered before but nothing like as good. Some of the special effects are decent enough but the performances are a bit ordinary and the end can't come soon enough.

I was initially lured in by this 2022 action horror movie's cover/poster. Yeah, I am a sucker for creature features, so of course this movie caught my attention.

Sure, I hadn't heard about "The Lair" prior to getting to sit down and watch it, so I virtually had no idea what I was in for here, aside the creature's face showing on the cover/poster. But that was essentially also enough to get me interested.

Writers Charlotte Kirk and Neil Marshall put together a fairly okay movie here. I mean, it felt like a typical creature feature from the 1980s and 1990s, so if you enjoyed those kind of movies back in the day, then "The Lair" will prove entertaining for you. I enjoyed it actually for what it was, and it was like a trip down a nostalgic path. Sure, writers Charlotte Kirk and Neil Marshall weren't revolutionizing the horror genre with "The Lair", but they came up with an adequately enough movie that proved watchable and enjoyable for what it was.

The acting performances in the movie was good. I wasn't familiar with a single actor or actress on the cast list, but I will say that they actually put on good enough performances to carry the movie and make "The Lair" enjoyable.

Visually then "The Lair" was okay. The creature design was a bit too simplistic for my liking. And the fact that it was so painstakingly obvious just guys in rubber suits wasn't helping the movie. Sure, it felt like something from 1980s, but for a movie made it 2022, it was a bit too simplistic. Better effects would have lifted the movie up from the mediocre lane.

Watchable for what it was, "The Lair" proves enjoyable enough for a single viewing. And I do mean a single viewing, because there simply isn't enough meat on the bone here, pardon my French, to support more than a single viewing.

My rating of director Neil Marshall's 2022 action horror movie "The Lair" lands on a five out of ten stars.

Unfortunately, the saddening downhill slope of Neil Marshall, author of such cool flicks as The Descent, Dog Soldiers and Centurion, continues, with the last three being lackluster Hellboy remake (5/10), disappointing historical horror The Reckoning (5/10) and now this, a flat, murky B creature feature with more cliché's than one can count.

. The set-up, story and conclusion, or pretty much everything, is by-the-numbers, run-down-the-mill B actioneer that also can't decide if it wants to be a horror movie or action comedy. We have an army base, a secret soviet (not nazi?!) bunker, cardboard soldiers throwing an overwhelming amount of weak one-liners, and a depthless, tired protagonist, and, of course, some monsters craving a fight with humans. About the only really decent factor of "The Lair" are the special effects, although used in abundance and leaving a taste for more. Acting wise I can only commend Hadi Khanjanpour, the Afghan prisoner on the road to being a badass, and having the only character with any sort of arc. Rest of the cast are having a lazy sunday stroll. There's a grain of an interesting horror movie idea in "The Lair", but it's all lost in a weak script and flat direction. "The Lair" gets dull and mindless already 10 minutes into it, and struggles to build any tension during the next 80, and whatever tension there might've been, is destroyed by frequent tiresome comedy.

. There really isn't much to say about this forgettable suBpar action horror film, the most fun you'll have is if you crack t least a couple beers and have some company, other than that, pass on this one, even if you love creature features. My rating: 4/10.