The Lair kicks off with its most eye-catching and dramatically urgent scenes: scrappy Royal Air Force Captain Sinclair (Kirk) is quickly shot out of the sky by Afghan fighters, without warning or unnecessary narrative throat-clearing. A fellow RAF man, Johnson (Alex Morgan), dies while trying to save Sinclair. “Sorry …” he says before a short pause. “For the inconvenience.”
Sinclair then flees from her attackers into an abandoned bunker, which contains the toothy monster that’s understandably all over this movie’s posters and advertising. It’s a neat-looking monster, even if it doesn’t look like it cost an arm and a leg (in real life), and was also maybe the product of Russian experimentation (in the movie), since the bunker it escaped from features some decorative Cyrillic warnings. Of particular note: “Do not open.”
Sinclair doesn’t read or speak Russian, but Kabir (Hadi Khanjanpour), a sympathetic Afghani soldier, does. He tags along with Sinclair to a nearby military base, where their respective wounds are tended to and some perfunctory getting-to-know-you information is exchanged. Sinclair also tries to warn Major Roy Finch (Jamie Bamber) and his group of disaffected stock types, like Everett (Mark Arends), the rookie, and Lafayette (Kibong Tanji), the klepto.
But Finch and his squad, which also includes three Brits led by the unflappable Sergeant Oswald Jones (Leon Ockenden), don’t believe in monsters, and also don’t know anything about the Russian base that Sinclair’s just escaped. Maybe she hallucinated it all? Kabir disagrees and in a short amount of time, so does the monster, who descends on Finch’s group and makes short work of them. Meanwhile, the surrounding Afghani soldiers are still armed, nearby, and unhappy.
The Lair is an American action horror film directed by Neil Marshall and starring Charlotte Kirk, Jamie Bamber, Jonathan Howard, Hadi Khanjanpour, Leon Ockenden, Troy Alexander, Harry Taurasi, Mark Strepan, Mark Arends, Adam Bond and Alex Morgan. The screenplay was written by Neil Marshall and Charlotte Kirk.
The Lair (2022)
Directed by: Neil Marshall
Starring: Charlotte Kirk, Jamie Bamber, Jonathan Howard, Hadi Khanjanpour, Leon Ockenden, Troy Alexander, Harry Taurasi, Mark Strepan, Mark Arends, Adam Bond, Alex Morgan
Screenplay by: Neil Marshall, Charlotte Kirk
Production Design by: Mónika Esztán
Cinematography by: Luke Bryant
Film Editing by: Neil Marshall
Costume Design by: Mária Fatér
Set Decoration by: Bence Horn, Panni Lutter
Art Direction by: Adrián Bajusz, Miklos Selmeczy
Music by: Christopher Drake
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Blue Swan Entertainment
Release Date: October 28, 2022
Visits: 19
