Scream Stream 2023: The Lair

What can I say about a Gay-Leather-Vampire-Gothic Soap Opera? Like several cable TV series from the late eighties to nineties such as Red Shoe Diaries, the show is also very much a soft core porn series but geared toward gay men (especially those into the Leather Scene). For more than one hundred years LGBT people have seen heterosexual sex scenes in movies and television ranging from very mild to quite graphic. It’s only natural that the LGBT community would like to see representation of their own lives and sexuality. That said, sex scenes do not a story make. Interspersed between the sex scenes of The Lair is a typical vampire story centering primarily on the old trope of ancient vampire seeks reincarnated lost lover. This theme has been done so many times from Dracula to Dark Shadows and will undoubtedly continue to be done as long as there are vampire movies and shows.

The Lair seemed to reinvent itself each season. The first season is all about the vampires. It featured a simple but catchy theme for the opening credits  which, unfortunately, was replaced for seasons 2-3 with an original song (“Welcome To The Lair”). Season 2 of  The Lair introduced a werewolf and a killer flower to the mix while season 3 gave us a male Gorgon, something rather unique to horror series.

The actors in The Lair…actually, they are mostly ex-porn stars, most notably Colton Ford and Johnny Hazzard. Most of the acting is abysmal. Straight erotic stars Ginger Lynne and Evan Stone come off fairly natural in the few scenes they are in during seasons 1 and 2. Peter Stickles, who has appeared in several other mainstream films is especially bad in his role as head vamp Damien although I would place a lot of the blame on the awful dialogue he is burdened with.

The other main actor is David Moretti (aka David Shae) who is a bit better but again, the dialogue he has would challenge the most gifted thespian. As David Shae he has appeared in the Marvel FOX series The Gifted, The CW Vampire series The Originals and Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House. One other actor who really wasn’t bad was Frankie Valenti who did several gay porn films under the name Johnny Hazzard for which he received many awards for his, er, acting. He appeared in seasons 2-3. The Lair poster above features him.