I really wanted to like The Lair as I started it. As I mentioned in my Hellboy review I’m a big fan of Neil Marshall, but I didn’t much care for this movie. The story is very similar to Death Valley, which I reviewed last year, but the biggest difference is the characters. In The Lair, the characters continually made terrible decisions.
That comes down to the writing which was done by Neil Marshall and Charlotte Kirk. I haven’t seen the movie they made before this, but I can only hope that its better than this was. It’s a well put together movie and looks great. This writing though is not great. Some of it might be down to some of the acting.
There are some weird accents throughout The Lair. A couple aren’t just weird but downright bad and both of them are Southern accents. The majority of the cast are English actors doing accents that weren’t their own, but most of them aren’t off putting. Charlotte Kirk, Jonathan Howard, Jamie Bamber, Leon Ockenden, Troy Alexander, Harry Taurasi, Mark Strepan, Hadi Khanjanpour, and Kibong Tanji star. Both Kirk and Howard do a pretty good job as the primary leads of the ensemble.
There are some awesome kills in The Lair. Those kills are done in a combination of practical and CG. Outside of the kills there’s a fair amount of jank when it comes to the visual effects. The creature designs are interesting and certainly a standout for the film. The music by Christopher Drake is good but nothing really stood out to me until the closing credits.
The Lair was a messy let down of a creature feature. I wouldn’t even say that this is better or worse than Death Valley because they’re both flawed movies, with eerily similar premises. You can watch both of the movies on Shudder since they’re both Shudder Originals. I give The Lair 5 lockets out of 10. [kofi]
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