The Lair (2022)

Plot of The Lair: A British fighter is shot down in Afghanistan, the pilot and navigator ejecting but coming under fire from insurgents. The pilot, Kate Sinclair, retreats into an old Russian subterranean bunker, but just manages to escape from a humanoid monster with big teeth. She is rescued by soldiers in a Humvee who take her back to their isolated fortification. They are soon attacked in the night by numerous monsters and their numbers reduced, even though some monsters are dispatched. It appears that they may be the result of Russian experiments, somehow involving an alien space craft. The only answer is for the reduced force, including Sinclair to take on the monsters in their subterranean lair.

Content: No sex or nudity. There might have been a bit of smoking. I have a job to register it unless it is continuous. Sinclair is shot down and her co-pilot killed by Taliban, however she manages to dispatch most of them. She runs about mainly clad in a vest until someone gives her a coat. In the gloomy underground she moves about until attacked by a creature. Back on the surface she is saved by Kabir, the one remaining guerrilla. In the military fortress it seems that the major in charge knows something about the monsters, but that does not help them. In the battles there are men’s faces bitten off and various dismemberments. A dead monster is cut open with a power saw and human organs extracted. It awakes at attacks them anyway. In a flashback Russians are seen with a spaceship.

A View: I thought the mainly British crew did OK as Americans although Charlotte Kirk, as Sinclair is supposed to be British, something I did not realise. There is very little info about this film in the public domain, but its very limited distribution makes it unlikely to have made money. Apparently Marshall and Kirk are a husband and wife team, seldom a recipe for success, and while the camera follows Kirk all the time I don’t think she really ever gets the hang of firing a Kalashnikov. It is not as easy as it sometimes looks. So unfortunately not really a watch, even while doing something else.

Fun Fact: The film was made in Belgrade, which apparently made it really hard for them to source a Humvee.