The Lair - Film Review

I think it's fair to say that we've all been victims of marketing campaigns before. Whether it's food, hotels, or entertainment, the negatives are frequently left out with the hope that the end-consumer will be willing to give something a try. I am ashamed to say that I fell prey to the advertisements for this particular abomination. Perhaps it was Neil Marshall's name being attached to it or the interesting plot. In any case, I guess I can attest that at least I have found a movie that's managed to make me more frustrated and angry than Resident Evil: Retribution.

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Where You Can Find It: I saw this via Amazon Video where it is available for rent/purchase, but it is primarily available via Shudder subscribers.

General Information 
The Lair is a science fiction horror film that was released on 28 October 2022. It was directed and co-written by Neil Marshall with Charlotte Kirk also co-writing and starring in the film. Cinematography was done by Luke Bryant and it's music was composed by Christopher Drake. The film was primarily released digitally via video-on-demand, but it had a small theatrical release that brought in an approximately $119,000. As of 20 December 2022, it lacks a Metascore on Metacritic, but it holds a 40% Tomatometer rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

The Story
British Royal Air Force pilot, Lieutenant Kate Sinclair (played by Charlotte Kirk), is shot down in Afghanistan by Taliban forces and finds herself stranded in the Afghan wilderness. After easily dispatching several Taliban fighters, she is chased to an old Soviet bunker where she takes refuge from pursuing insurgent forces. When more Taliban forces follow her inside, the ensuing gun battle leads to the accidental release of strange creatures that hunger for human flesh. Now, it's up to her and a ragtag team of British and American military forces to fend off this new threat before it's too late.

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As if the Taliban weren't bad enough...

There's a lot to unpack with this film, but I think I can start with the awful characters. Based on the IMDB listing, I don't see a military consultant for this military-centric film, and it reflects in the end-product. None of the military personnel in the story (which is essentially 95% of the characters) look or act like genuine soldiers. The U.S. troops are essentially caricatures of James Cameron's space marines from Aliens, and the British military guys are essentially stereotypes that speak random British sayings from time to time. I'll be fair, realism isn't necessary for a great film, but it also doesn't help when all of the characters are unlikable cartoons.

Monster movies don't necessarily need likable characters if there's an interesting antagonist that will keep the viewers guessing, but viewers shouldn't expect to find that here either. The monsters live and die entirely at the whims of the writers, which is somewhat comical since Kirk is a co-writer that also plays the chief protagonist. Sometimes the monster is bulletproof; sometimes it can be felled with a mere baseball bat; and other times it can resurrect from the dead. I've mentioned this in more than one of my horror reviews, but the mark of a good horror story is in the rules its antagonist must live by. If the rules only apply when it's convenient for the plot, there are no stakes and thus little reason to actually care.

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Ah, yes, rifle bullets do nothing to it, but this dull cleaver you found should do the trick

 

I've somewhat already touched on this, but the dialogue throughout this film is an abomination of the highest order. The characters do not sound like actual human beings, which makes emotional scenes laughable and badass scenes so cringe-inducing that I think I hurt myself while watching the third act. Very early into the film, Sinclair's co-pilot dies and his final words are an apology for the "inconvenience" of his dying. This should have been enough of a warning to my viewing party and I as to what was in store for us through the rest of the film, but we foolishly pressed on.

Special Effects/Atmosphere

For a film that clearly takes a great deal of inspiration from Aliens, it breaks a cardinal rule that Ridley Scott first ushered in with Alien: show the monster as little as possible. Not only do we get to see what the antagonist looks like, but we get up-close views of it in daylight. It's possible that if Neil Marshall had access to Disney-levels of special effects funding that this would be okay, but in full light the rubber suit and mask are obvious. I'm frankly surprised and disappointed that Marshall and Luke Bryant made this error as Marshall's magnum opus, The Descent, succeeded in-part due to his reluctance to clearly present the antagonists of that specific film.

As its a movie about soldiers and monsters, one can expect a lot of action and shooting in this film, but it's remarkable how awful the choreography is throughout it. The monsters move and fight like Power Rangers villains, and nearly all of the shoot-outs lack any substance. The actors frequently don't look like they know how to handle the weapons their characters are using, which only exacerbates their atrociously assembled outfits. Major Finch (Jamie Bamber) looked so comical in the first scene we're introduced to him as that I (and others) assumed Finch was actually a private pretending to be an officer as part of some prank on Sinclair.

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Of call the ridiculous characters in this film, Major Finch is the most absurd

The sole positive thing I can say about this film is that it has some fairly solid set-design. Whether it's the Soviet bunker or Fort Apache, I genuinely found these locales to work well and look good. The Soviet bunker in particular looked pretty cool and I appreciated the lighting used in it. Marshall doesn't quite go for the organic-lights-only approach he used in The Descent, but the colored lighting looks pretty nice.

 

The Acting 

Considering this film's bad writing, the actors were fighting a losing battle in this film before the cameras even started rolling. As it stands, viewers can expect a range of quality from passable to terrible. Despite being a co-writer for the script, Charlotte Kirk comes off as wooden and unremarkable throughout the film. She has less range than the T-1000 and no chemistry with any of the other performers, which made me never care about Sinclair's plight.

Jamie Bamber and Leon Ockenden deserve special acknowledgement for how terrible their accents were. I'm generally usually impressed with how well folks from the U.K. can pass themselves off as Americans, but Bamber's take on the battle-hardened Major Finch enters the so-bad-it's-funny territory. As soon as Ockenden opened his mouth, my entire viewing party had questions about where he came from and why he sounded the way he did. I genuinely considered laying the blame at his Cornish origins, but I've listened to other actors from Cornwall speak and this was something entirely new and unique to me.

In an attempt to be positive, I thought Jonathan Howard and Hadi Khanjanpour did okay as Sergeant Hook and Kabir. Howard is arguably the only actor that was able to pass himself off as both an American and as a soldier (he is an American, so it's not asking much). Khanjanpour was the only actor that was able to provide any emotional weight to his character, although I never understood why Kabir understood and spoke English so well considering he is supposed to be a local Taliban insurgent that's never left his corner of Afghanistan.

 

The Best of the Best: The Soviet bunker looked cool.

The Worst of the Worst: The entirety of the character that is Major Finch.

Calhooey Score: 2/10 - Awful

Would I Recommend?

5

Call in an airstrike on this one

 

I generally reserve 2/10 scores for films that are so bad that they're good, but this one holds a special position as something so loathsome I can't even recommend it as that. The only thing saving this film from a dreaded 1/10 is that its set-design was pretty nice. With that said, people should stay far away from this film at all costs. It's not worth your money or your time, even if you're drunk/high/hospitalized. If you really like Neil Marshall, just re-watch The Descent.

Spoiler Comments

• Considering how well-known Afghanistan is for its mountain ranges and aerial vehicle crashes, I was a bit surprised that Sinclair was flying so close to the ground.
• I don't care how cool it looks, a skinny Afghan's body is not going to stop several 7.62mm rounds from perforating you into bloody paste.
• It was at this point in the film that I knew things weren't looking good for me and the rest of my viewing party.
  
• After seeing Sinclair deftly dispatch two separate teams of well-armed Taliban insurgents, I began to feel sorry for the monster.
• I stopped caring about the Americans after they continued to threaten and rob Sinclair after they identified her as the person they were looking to rescue.
• From what I can tell, the only stereotypical thing that the British soldiers didn't say was "Pip, pip, cheery-o!"
• Also: I guess the SAS just randomly roam Afghanistan looking for fights?
• I am not sad that we missed out on the Lafayette romance subplot with that soldier who brought her coffee once.
• These creatures have super strength, can read minds, and work as a team, but trying to open a CONEX (military shipping container) was too much for them.
• Well, actually... A standard issue U.S. Army grenade (M67) would detonate with enough force to reduce everyone in that tent to giblets (at best). Major Finch's act of heroic sacrifice was both incredibly stupid and not at all heroic.
• There would certainly be nothing left of Finch, nor probably anyone else in that tent.
• Let's talk about the dumb choice the protagonists thrust upon themselves in the third act because Sergeant Hook claims that they can't simply leave for a safer base because they're cut off from the rest of allied forces. Don't they have working radios? Major Finch is constantly calling up INSCOM, so I would assume Sergeant Hook can give the neighboring base a ring.
  
• Based on the argument they provided at this juncture of the film, it means that everyone is going to die at the end of this movie anyway since they're still isolated in deep Taliban-controlled territory.
• I never thought I would find a film where I am actively rooting for the Taliban...
• Why didn't the monsters kill Sergeant Hook immediately? The fall from the shaft should've been enough to kill him on its own, but we've also never seen these things take human prisoners.
• Apparently, they were kind enough to just leave him be and let him make calls from his radio too.
• Kabir's father once owned a watch and one of the monster had a watch, and I had long since stopped caring at that point in the movie.
  

References

(1) The Lair. (2022). The Lair cover image. IMDB. Retrieved from: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13468602/?ref_=ttawd_awd_tt.

(2) O'Rourke, R. (2022, October 7). Sinclair and Brain Monster image. Collider. Retrieved from: https://collider.com/the-lair-trailer-neil-marshall-charlotte-kirk/.

(3) The Lair. (2022). Sergeant Hook with Cleaver image. Rather Good Film. Retrieved from: https://www.rathergoodfilm.co.uk/the-lair/.

(4) Jamie Bamber Daily. (2022). Major Finch with Sinclair image. Tumblr. Retrieved from: https://jamiebamberdaily.tumblr.com/post/660404148696760320/the-lair-what-we-know-so-far-updated-06th.

(5) Hughes, K. (2022, August 25). Sinclair and others image. THN. Retrieved from: https://www.thehollywoodnews.com/2022/08/25/the-lair-review-frightfest/.