Lair is now streaming on VOD. Reader beware, Spoilers!
Everyone loves a good, haunted house tale. Movies like Insidious, The Orphanage, Martyr’s Lane, and We are Still Here has taken the haunted house troupes and turned them on their heads to give us something as unique as it is frightening. Writer/ director Adam Ethan Crow blends the haunted object genre with a criminal procedural to provide us with his debut film, Lair. Which is currently streaming on everywhere on VOD from 1091 Pictures gives viewers a fresh twist on the genre.
Set in London, we’re thrown off the deep end right away as we witness the brutal murder of a mother and son. Ben Dollarhyde (Oded Fehr), the husband and father, is locked up for the crime. Still, in a jail cell confession to his former partner, fellow fake paranormal expert and con artist Steven Caramore (Corey Johnson), he believes he was possessed by one of the objects Caramore had stored at his house.
A skeptic of the supernatural, Caramore initially rejects this possibility. After Dollarhyde’s lawyer (Alexandra Gilbreath) talks to him about the possibility of liability on his part for the murder, he decides to investigate if the artifacts do contain something sinister. With the help of his mysterious friend Ola (Kashif O’Connor), the two set about rigging his late father’s apartment with mini cameras, collecting the artifacts from Dollarhyde’s house, and setting up an Airbnb to lure their test subjects.
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The unknowing lab rats are blossoming couple Carly (Alana Wallace) and Maria (Aislinn De’Ath), on vacation in London with Maria’s daughters, Joey (Anya Newall), who’s sixteen and eight year old Lilly (Lara Mount). Maria is wound extremely tight, and the baggage she carries from her failed marriage causes her to lash out at anyone in her path. Carly feels like an outsider within the family dynamic, and much of the drama aspect stems from her insecurities.
They first try out a creepy doll, which did not affect the apartment other than the youngest getting attached—replacing the doll with a Teddy bear, which begins the animosity between Caramore and the family, to no avail. It isn’t until a jet-black Madonna figurine is placed in the kids’ room that we get our first glimpse of something strange beginning to manifest. I will also never put a rug near a bed ever again, thanks to that scene.
The tension and dread build as the released entity begins to ramp up the pressure within the family and the violence and gore. Torn between fame and guilt, Caramore starts to question his decision. As the bloodshed begins, he must decide if he’s going to try and save this innocent family from the nightmare that he inflicted. Or if he’s going to sit at his monitor and record their horrific demise.
If you removed the third act of Lair, it could be a British family drama, but luckily, they didn’t do that. The horror elements are sporadic throughout the narrative, but the tub overflows when the blood faucet is turned loose. Crows’ use of slow zooms sells the tension of some of the more disturbing set-pieces. By creeping towards what we fear is hiding in the darkness, the camera pushes us further into a situation we know won’t end well, but we’re powerless to stop it.
The monster of Lair is not something I have seen before. A shadow figure that feels like it’s on fire as the skin constantly moves and flickers. There are a few good scares in addition to the body count. The bathtub scene and the child’s bedroom were both starling and unnerving. The idea of making the Lady Madonna statue the conduit, but covered in black, adds a satanic element without having to come out and say it. There was also the wooden board, another religious iconography that hints at the demonic behind it all.
Corey Johnson as Steven Caramore is the vilest person I’ve watched in a movie in a long time. So, he’s nailing it. In a sea of unlikable characters through performance and actions, you root for his comeuppance the minute you meet him. There isn’t anyone to root for in Lair, unfortunately. Ben Dollarhyde is the most sympathetic person in the film, and he’s only in it for five minutes. I gravitated to a guy who cleaned up dead kids without so much as an extra blink of emotion if that tells you anything.
Lair is an inventive telling of a haunting narrative. The experimental aspect, the investigation portion, and the use of time jumps add another element to a saturated genre to varying degrees of success, but engaging, nonetheless. Crow has managed to craft a movie that shows a family in a crisis and how that painful energy manifests itself not only in an outside force but the core family unit as well, especially the youngest. Just be careful the next time you rent an Airbnb. That harmless knick-knack you goof on might just be waiting for you to fall asleep. 3/5
Lair is now available everywhere on Video On Demand, check out the trailer below. Be sure to follow ScaryNerd for all things horror, sci-fi and more.
K.B. O’Neil is an artist, writer and musician living in Cincinnati, Ohio. He loves movies, books, video games, snuggling his two pups and all things Horror. When not working he can be found getting into adventures with his wife and their new daughter.