The Lair (2022)

The Lair is the kind of lean, mean creature-feature that remembers why horror and action make such a satisfying marriage: momentum, mayhem, and the pleasure of watching professionals fight to survive in a place that feels cursed by history. Neil Marshall stages the chaos with muscular clarity—tight choreography, punchy pacing, and moody lighting that turns the bunker into a nightmare maze—while the Ravagers land with satisfyingly tactile, practical heft instead of weightless CGI. Charlotte Kirk anchors the film with a scrappy, forward-driving presence, keeping the movie’s pulse up even when the odds get cruel. Fair warning: the gore is emphatically not shy, but if you’re on the fence and want a brisk, blood-soaked blast that delivers on its premise, this one commits and doesn’t let up.

The Lair is clearly aiming for a lean, pulpy “soldiers vs. monsters” ride in the spirit of old-school creature features, with Neil Marshall trying to bottle that scrappy, siege-movie energy again. The problem is the execution: the dialogue is packed with clunky one-liners, the accents can be distracting, and the characters often feel like familiar genre cutouts rather than people you’ll care about when the bullets and claws start flying. If you need smart writing, convincing performances, or fresh horror ideas, this will likely feel like a noisy retread with lots of shouting between set-pieces. On the plus side, if you’re mainly here for gory creature attacks, military-action pacing, and don’t mind B-movie rough edges, it delivers enough splatter and momentum to kill 90 minutes.