NEIL Marshall, the man behind such modern horror classics as Dog Soldiers and The Descent, is back with another ‘splat pack’ romp.
Now showing exclusively on Shudder, The Lair is far from Marshall’s best work – in fact it is anything but. Still, as silly as it all is, I was shamefully entertained for the duration.
Schlocky and fairly predictable, the film opens in Afghanistan as Royal Air Force pilot Lt Kate Sinclair (Charlotte Kirk) is shot down and must seek refuge in an abandoned underground bunker with insurgents hot on her tail.
This secret Russian dugout is home to deadly man-made biological weapons and slumbering half-human, half-alien monsters which, when awakened, have an insatiable appetite for jarhead US Marines.
These freakish mutant creatures, known as Ravengers, with their sharp-toothed grins, see the local military outpost as nothing more than an all you can eat buffet.
Terrified after seeing the local rebels devoured by these monsters with a taste for human flesh, Sinclair is lucky to escape and be saved by US Sergeant Hook (Jonathan Howard) and his army patrol sent to find her.
Major Roy Finch (Jamie Bamber), commander of the local US army outpost, ‘Fort Apache’, and his ragtag squad of brave soldiers have a difficult time believing mutant monsters have been kept hidden in these mountains. Unaware that Sinclair has been tracked to their base, dozens of the vicious creatures are already swarming towards them.
The Lair is the worst kind of B-movie blockbuster. It takes itself far too seriously and the acting is so inexplicably bad that surely the cast had to have learned their stagecraft in the adult film industry.
But despite its flaws, of which it has many, I couldn’t turn my eyes away or contain my goonish grin. This is a pure guilty pleasure. Here we have a film so God damn awful, I almost feel unclean in my base delight.
Think Resident Evil or Outpost brought to you by the ‘director’ of Debbie Does Dallas.
(3/5)
