'The Lair' Will Be The Next Subterranean Horror Movie From Director Neil Marshall

Neil Marshall, the filmmaker behind The Descent and a guy whose name is embroiled in an ongoing Hollywood scandal involving his fiancee, actress Charlotte Kirk, has a new project lined-up. Marshall will helm the action-horror pic The Lair, about a Royal Air Force pilot who gets shot down in Afghanistan and stumbles upon a bunker full of monsters. This isn't exactly fresh material for Marshall – The Descent, arguably his best film, also involves people fighting subterranean creatures.

These days, whenever Neil Marshall's name comes up, it tends to be associated with his fiance, Charlotte Kirk. It's a bit of a messy story, and no one knows all the facts, but here's how Variety sums it up:

Kirk [is] at the center of two Hollywood sex scandals, which led to the ouster of NBCUniversal Vice Chairman Ron Meyer and Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara. Kirk has been accused, with her finance, of seeking to extort millions in payments in exchange for their silence about Kirk's sexual misconduct allegations. They deny the allegations. Kirk appeared most recently in Marshall's horror film, "The Reckoning," which she also co-wrote.

And as the scandal continued to boil over, The Reckoning ended up being pulled from this year's Fantasia International Film Festival, where it was meant to have its world premiere. But none of these developments are stopping Marshall from moving forward with a new project: The Lair. Per that same Variety story, The Lair "centers on Royal Air Force pilot Lt. Kate Sinclair, who is on her final flight mission when her jet is shot down over one of the most dangerous rebel strongholds of Afghanistan. She finds refuge in an abandoned underground bunker where deadly man-made creatures — half-human, half-alien and hungry for human flesh — are awakened. Sinclair barely escapes and unknowingly leads the creatures known as Ravagers back to a U.S. army base."

A female character battling underground creatures is familiar territory for Marshall, as it's the same basic premise of The Descent. But since I find The Descent to be the filmmaker's best movie, I'm not complaining. I'm happy to see him play to his strengths.

"If The Reckoning was a gothic drama in testament to the power and resilience of women, then The Lair is my true return to full-blooded horror and intense genre action in the style of Dog SoldiersThe Descent, and Doomsday," Marshall said. "I'm making something scary as hell, pulse-pounding and great fun. This is a crowd-pleaser, an adrenaline-pumping roller-coaster ride; spectacular and loud, inspired by classic genre movies like Aliens, Predator, and The Thing and their incredible use of practical creature FX. Featuring a new breed of screen terror, 'The Lair' will be a snarling, ravenous beast of a movie. I'm going to get my hands bloody making this one!"