Making a masterpiece has its drawbacks — impressing people creates expectations. That’s been the story of the critical response to Neil Marshall‘s filmography ever since he hit the scene with the one-two punch of Dog Soldiers and The Descent, two of the defining horror films of the 2000s. The Descent, especially, was so good that it conditioned people to expect the same thing from Marshall, but it’s probably an anomaly in his career, not in terms of quality but in its sheer seriousness.
The thing is, with the exception of The Reckoning, Marshall’s movies are usually pretty light and fun in the entertainingly odd way of B-movies from the ’80s like The Keep and The Hidden. From exploding rabbits to a hand being punched all the way through a face, most of his films are slightly silly, violently over-the-top genre mash-ups that hearken back to the action-packed sci-fi/ horror of Predator and Alien. The Lair, his new film, embraces these qualities the most, casting aside the rigorous character development, intellectual themes, and strict logic of ‘serious cinema’ in order to be as relentlessly fun as possible.
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The Lair Pits Soldiers Against Soviet Mutants
RLJE Films
The Lair is structured around a pretty cool, original premise. Lt. Kate Sinclair (played by Charlotte Kirk, who co-wrote and co-produced the film with Marshall) is shot down while flying over Afghanistan in 2017. She barely escapes a group of armed men (presumably ISKP, ISIS, or Taliban) when she discovers a labyrinthine underground bunker left over by the Soviet Union after their invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
This seems to have been the lair of Soviet scientists working on new military technology in their fight against the Mujahideen. Three decades later, it’s a dusty, abandoned industrial complex, a creepy set with good use of colored lighting, decomposing bodies, and all the iconography of mad scientists‘ laboratories. Kate engages in a gunfight with the men who chased her here, and the ricocheting bullets damage certain equipment, waking up the monstrous mutants being developed by the Soviets.
Related: Here’s What Makes The Descent an Empowering Horror Movie For Women
Eventually, Kate is taken in by a group of misfit military men at a nearby outpost, the kind of place where governments send screw-ups to. A kleptomaniac, a former drug addict, a random group of Welshmen, and more are stationed there under the command of the bitter Finch (Jamie Bamber, wearing an eye patch and sounding like Matthew McConnaughey for some hilarious reason). When night falls, they are forced to battle with the creatures from below.
Neil Marshall Puts Action Over Plot in The Lair
RLJE Films
The strong original idea lends itself to many opportunities, only some of which are zealously seized; The Lair is more interested in creating set pieces and staging epic, intense action scenes. The film itself ultimately feels like three very fun, exhilarating, and often gruesome action sequences with minimalist connective tissue between them, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The practical effects, creature design, and gore are usually wonderful, and Marshall films the action in hyperactive but coherent ways.
Those three action-packed sections of the film are undoubtedly the most entertaining, with Marshall and his crew consistently finding inventive new ways to be scary, gross, suspenseful, and funny. The Lair isn’t a comedy, but it has a strong sense of humor like most of Marshall’s films and doesn’t seem to ever take itself too seriously. This is a saving grace because if it wasn’t as self-aware and knowledgeable of its ’80s influences, The Lair would feel fairly stupid.
Related: Neil Marshall’s The Lair Gets Compared to a Mix of Dog Soldiers, Alien & Predator
Characters make illogical decisions and speak in clichés and melodrama, while events become increasingly unrealistic. The Lair engenders a wide suspension of disbelief, though, because it knows what it is. This is the kind of movie where characters say excruciatingly stupid things like “batter’s up” before smashing someone with a baseball bat, or “smile for the camera” before shooting someone with a machine gun (which doesn’t make much sense as a dumb pun, which almost makes it funnier). The Lair truly feels like an ’80s B-picture in these moments and others, accepting its own silliness for the sake of fun.
The Lair Has Grisly Gore and Great Practical Effects
RLJE Films
While the dialogue and logic of The Lair may be self-knowingly lacking, the creature design and death scenes are generally phenomenal. Monsters of brute force, the sinister Soviet mutants are mammoth, hulking things, and yet able to jump distances like a frog. Their faces are dominated by gaping mouths and rows of shark-like teeth, they have waving long arms with slightly webbed claws, and skin that’s thick as Kevlar. These are some mean monstrosities.
One of the best scenes outside the action sequences intelligently incorporates the gore and practical effects with an autopsy, with the soldiers hovering over the dead body of one beast, hoping to understand what they’re up against. The military doctor Wilks (played by an excellent Mark Strepan, who really stands out) crouches above the creature on the operating table with a power drill and crowbar in order to access its chest cavity, and the whole thing is a marvelous glimpse into what some of the expositional scenes in The Lair could’ve been with a careful rewrite.
The Lair is ultimately about the action, though, setting up a ragtag group of papery characters in order to blow them down with a gust of enjoyable horror. Movies like Predator or Return of the Living Dead aren’t beloved for their character development, wit, and thoughtful introspection, and with its cheesy dialogue, an abundance of action, gruesome gore, and cool little concept, The Lair fits right in. It embraces the B-movie mindset and, even when being a bit daft, has a lot of fun. While it arguably doesn’t make the most out of its interesting concept and is not what some might call a masterpiece, The Lair has a hell of a fun time not being one.
The Lair, which premiered in the UK at FrightFest, will be released by RLJE Films in theaters, On Demand, and digital on October 28th and Shudder will release the film in early 2023.
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