LAIR Review
LAIR is a new film written and directed by Adam Ethan Crow, that stars Corey Johnson (The Mauritanian) as Steven Caramore, Aislin De’Ath (Cornered) as Maria Engel, Alana Wallace (Black Ops) as Carly Cortes, Lara Mount as Lilly, Anya Newall as Joey in both of their film debuts, Alexandra Gilbreath (EastEnders, Tulip Fever) as Wendy Coulson, and Oded Fehr (The Mummy Franchise, The Resident Evil Franchise) as Ben Dollarhyde. It concerns a strange man, Caramore, who after the horrible death of his friend and his family decides that he should experiment with certain cursed objects that are in his possession to see if they actually work, by putting them in a Airbnb that an unsuspecting woman, her girlfriend, and children rent in London. TW: suicide, partner violence.
I’m not really going to spend a lot of time analyzing the film because it is pretty straightforward, in a way. The good points are that the film is centered on a group of women characters. In fact, not only is the central relationship LGBTQ, but the women have most of the screen time and most of the sympathetic treatment of the film’s characters. The relationship and the family unit of this central group is treated as normal and natural until the blood and guts start to fly, which is admirable. I have to really give Adam Ethan Crow credit for presenting a LGBTQ relationship and family group as a perfectly normal one and centering this family as the heroes of the film. There’s no extraneous attempts to make it seem anything but perfectly normal, outside of a trip to Pride that coincides with the events of the film, but even that isn’t treated in a way that calls undue attention to it. I think that the more that filmmakers make the effort to present characters and situations outside of the white CIS norm in mainstream film, the better. Are all of the characters good people? No, because part of the story is dealing with issues among people in relationships.
Another good point is that the movie immediately gets down to business and starts killing people in gruesome ways. The monster is mostly kept off screen in an economical and useful manner. But when the guts start popping out of characters stomachs and characters start to scream, the film puts its nose to the grindstone and does its best work. I’m not saying that the film is particularly artful, it isn’t, but if you enjoy watching films where a fair number of people die horribly regardless of how nice or good they are, then LAIR may be for you. The blood is CGI blood, but the guts look practical. You win some, you lose some in the gore sweepstakes with LAIR.
A great point is that the film has Oded Fehr in it, albeit briefly, and any time that Fehr is in a film that film is doing something right.
The less good aspect is that the film, as a whole, reminds me of a late 1990’s American television show, plot-wise, and suffers, in general, from a lack of boundary pushing imaginative touches. However, if this was the 1990’s, LAIR would probably be a solid video store favorite. I can’t reveal which show it reminds me of, because that would tell you much more than I should say about the movie’s plot, but I did like the show when I watched it.
Is LAIR a groundbreaking work of filmic art? No. Is it a decent choice to cue up when you want to relax and watch some viscera fly in a movie that doesn’t ask too much of your brain? Sure. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. LAIR is available to rent on Amazon Prime Video for $4.99.
Here’s the trailer: