'Laid to Rest' focuses on a woman (Bobbie Sue Luther) who is actually thirty, but looks forty, and is trying to be twenty. Throughout the film she is known simply as The Girl. . . and then Princess (ugh). Why? Because, after being locked in a casket in a funeral home for an unknown amount of time, she lost her memory (from trauma or air deprivation, I don't know) and therefore doesn't know her own name. I was a bit lost here, though, and it was only about five minutes in. I just had to ask. . . this steel-faced killer (known as Chrome Skull. . . seriously) locks his victim in a casket, puts her in a funeral home, lets her escape. . . then kills the mortician? Why? Why bring your victim somewhere she can be easily found and risk getting caught? They try to explain it later, but it still makes almost no sense. Regardless. . . it was stupid and the dumb-ass Chrome Skull doesn't even take advantage of the could-be cool environment for any murder.
Anyway. . . The Girl gets to some small nearby town with the help of hick trucker Tucker (Kevin Gage from other mediocre modern horrors like 'Amusement' and 'Kill Theory) and finds out that, uh oh, Mr. Scary Chrome Skull is chasing her down with his not-too-conspicuous metal face and a whole load of MacGuyver-esquire tricks up his chrome sleeves. As Chromey McGee continues to slash his way through any random person he comes across for no real reason, The Girl selfishly allows this rather than giving herself up to this Shredder-wannabe and just ending the murder spree. Also, there's. . . wait, no. . . metal face, annoying old-looking girl, hicks. . . yep, that about covers it.
Technically speaking, the film isn't all that bad. The direction & cinematography are pretty good. However, the story is moronic and the characters are stupid. And I mean really stupid. The characters in this movie make dumb & dumber from 'The Strangers' look like damn rocket scientists. I didn't even understand what they were doing most of the time. For instance, if a girl with bleeding feet and a gaping wound in the back of her head is found on the side of the road ranting about being trapped somewhere and having a killer stalk her down. . . you don't take her home for a nice little heart-to-heart chat! You call 911 and make them come to you, regardless of them being 100 miles away! Or at least drive her to a hospital, doctor's house, or fire house so SOMEONE can help. Jesus! Plot holes were also a problem. . . and this is ignoring any typical slasher plot holes. One of the most annoying was the fact that Sir Chromington was perfectly able to slaughter an entire police department. . . but doesn't have the balls to challenge three mostly unarmed civilians? All he had to do was bump up in his pimped out Chrysler 300M (I'm not kidding, that's what the guy drove) and pull a drive-by on them.
One of the supposed draws of the flick involves the "most inventive death scenes in years" as said by royal suck-up Mr. Disgusting from Bloody-Disgusting.com. Really? A few people get stabbed in various ways but that's it. Man, for a horror-news reporter, I would've expected Mr. Disgusting to have seen more than just five horror flicks over the course of the past few years as that's the max amount you could see and still think this film has the most inventive deaths. Even the mediocre flicks 'Hatchet' and 'Storm Warning' had better kills than this one. I guess some of the super-special stabbings are done in cool ways. . . but, they're ruined by the horrendous effects. The blood is realistic enough, but the during-kill effects are just painful to watch. . . and not in a good way. One glaring example of this serious inadequacy involves the knife-through-the-head scene. It was like watching someone stab a Cabbage Patch Doll. That's how realistic the human prop looked. The effects were so bad that the director actually had to resort to tearing away parts of the image and blurring out parts with camera smudges. Sir, stay within the constraints of your budget and you won't have to resort to lame tricks like that to hide your low-quality effects.
The flick had a good bit of violence, but lacked in the other areas that dumb slashers should excel (including showing more of the fake-breasted heroine and maybe a token black guy?). Overall, it's just not worth the time and basically stands as yet another crappy slasher with just a bit more style and a higher budget than the others we're so accustomed to.
Final Verdict: A very low 4/10, simply for a couple of creepy scenes and the overall violent goodness.
-AP3-
Anyway. . . The Girl gets to some small nearby town with the help of hick trucker Tucker (Kevin Gage from other mediocre modern horrors like 'Amusement' and 'Kill Theory) and finds out that, uh oh, Mr. Scary Chrome Skull is chasing her down with his not-too-conspicuous metal face and a whole load of MacGuyver-esquire tricks up his chrome sleeves. As Chromey McGee continues to slash his way through any random person he comes across for no real reason, The Girl selfishly allows this rather than giving herself up to this Shredder-wannabe and just ending the murder spree. Also, there's. . . wait, no. . . metal face, annoying old-looking girl, hicks. . . yep, that about covers it.
Technically speaking, the film isn't all that bad. The direction & cinematography are pretty good. However, the story is moronic and the characters are stupid. And I mean really stupid. The characters in this movie make dumb & dumber from 'The Strangers' look like damn rocket scientists. I didn't even understand what they were doing most of the time. For instance, if a girl with bleeding feet and a gaping wound in the back of her head is found on the side of the road ranting about being trapped somewhere and having a killer stalk her down. . . you don't take her home for a nice little heart-to-heart chat! You call 911 and make them come to you, regardless of them being 100 miles away! Or at least drive her to a hospital, doctor's house, or fire house so SOMEONE can help. Jesus! Plot holes were also a problem. . . and this is ignoring any typical slasher plot holes. One of the most annoying was the fact that Sir Chromington was perfectly able to slaughter an entire police department. . . but doesn't have the balls to challenge three mostly unarmed civilians? All he had to do was bump up in his pimped out Chrysler 300M (I'm not kidding, that's what the guy drove) and pull a drive-by on them.
One of the supposed draws of the flick involves the "most inventive death scenes in years" as said by royal suck-up Mr. Disgusting from Bloody-Disgusting.com. Really? A few people get stabbed in various ways but that's it. Man, for a horror-news reporter, I would've expected Mr. Disgusting to have seen more than just five horror flicks over the course of the past few years as that's the max amount you could see and still think this film has the most inventive deaths. Even the mediocre flicks 'Hatchet' and 'Storm Warning' had better kills than this one. I guess some of the super-special stabbings are done in cool ways. . . but, they're ruined by the horrendous effects. The blood is realistic enough, but the during-kill effects are just painful to watch. . . and not in a good way. One glaring example of this serious inadequacy involves the knife-through-the-head scene. It was like watching someone stab a Cabbage Patch Doll. That's how realistic the human prop looked. The effects were so bad that the director actually had to resort to tearing away parts of the image and blurring out parts with camera smudges. Sir, stay within the constraints of your budget and you won't have to resort to lame tricks like that to hide your low-quality effects.
The flick had a good bit of violence, but lacked in the other areas that dumb slashers should excel (including showing more of the fake-breasted heroine and maybe a token black guy?). Overall, it's just not worth the time and basically stands as yet another crappy slasher with just a bit more style and a higher budget than the others we're so accustomed to.
Final Verdict: A very low 4/10, simply for a couple of creepy scenes and the overall violent goodness.
-AP3-