[Laid To Rest]
Plot:The terrifying story of a young girl who wakes up in a casket with a traumatic head injury and no memory of her identity. She soon realizes she has been abducted by a deranged serial murderer in an isolated rural town. Now she must survive the night and outsmart the technologically inclined killer who is hellbent on finishing what he started.

Cast:Bobbi Sue Luther, Kevin Gage, Sean Whalen, Richard Lynch, Lena Headey, Nick Principe, Seri DeYoung, Lucas Till, Anthony Fitzgerald, Thomas Dekker.

My Thoughts:Not as good as advertised.

Review:"Laid To Rest" was being advertised as this new age slasher movie, this slasher movie to end all indie slasher movies. In reality, the film is indeed a suitable slasher film. And it does indeed have some good qualities. But it certainly is not great, by any means. The movie follows a girl who wakes up in a coffin inside of a funeral parlor. The girl is the standard horror movie cliche, hot caucasian female, brunette, doesn't have a clue as to what-the-hell is going on, ya know the usual.

It isn't long after she's awake, before the films villain appears. Chromeskull, a technologically-dependent serial murderer, who wears a chrome-plated mask, and who's knives are just as sharp as his mind, and just as shiny as his face. After he offs some old guy who offers to help the woman escape, she takes off out into the road, where she manages to flag down help. Which she gets from a guy who kind of looks like ex-pro wrestler Bill Goldberg.

He helps her flee the scene, but it isn't long before Chromeskull is hot on her trail...and now is willing to dispose of anyone who stands between him and her. "Laid To Rest" has a half and half complex. It's half good, and half bad. The good? The killer is certainly different from the standard slasher movie killer. He looks cooler, carries himself cooler, has cooler weapons, cooler methods, he's just all around superior to the old mask and trench coat killers of yesteryear.

He's also a very violent maniac. This guy isn't about pursuing much, but rather likes to wait for his victims to get themselves into a certain position so he can sneak up on them. And when he finally gets them, he shows no mercy. Which made for a very gory film all around. But then there's the bad, which comes from the one place writers and directors can never seem to get right in slasher films only but rarely. The targets.

The victims. They're all typical cliches of what slasher movie characters would normally be, A skinny tech-savvy guy who isn't much help without a laptop, a kind of lunkhead hick type who means well, but isn't very bright, and of course the hot chick who manages to escape by the skin of her teeth -- every encounter with chromie because someone else is around to take the knife for her, or she manages to land a kick or a punch to momentarily free herself. Then of course we have the WPWT'ers.

"Wrong Place, Wrong Timers"...who are strolled about the film as people passing through town for one reason or another. And just happen to wander upon the murderer and are soon dead and killed by the murderer. The filmmakers blend old and new with this movie as you can see, and while the killers overall make up is really sweet-looking, if he hadn't been chromeskull with the mask, knives, camera attached to his shoulder, car, and the works....this film would've been disasterous.

Another annoying thing about it is the logic of the characters. There are two scenes which stand out as examples. In one scene, a woman's boyfiriend is decapitated by the killer right in front of her. So instead of taking off running, she exits the car and tries to creep around to the other side for some unknown reason. I don't even need to tell you how she winds up later on. And even worse than that, is a scene later on where a brave teenage redneck steps out of his dad's storefront with a gun which he never even uses!!

Instead, opting to trash-talk chromie, who ends up turning the tables on the kid in the end. It's stuff like this which just bugged the hell out of me. And while both scenes ended in very gory, and bloody demises, the way they played out sucked, period. The film overall though does an excellent job of keeping on the pressure, and what I mean by that is the killer spills alot of blood, severes alot of limbs, and does some serious damage. Gorehounds should love it, and he's also very persistent....never quitting on tracking down his intended target.

There's a small twist which comes at the very end of the movie, where the killer is left to attempt to dispose of the final victim, but before this can happen...decides to reveal a secret to them about themselves. While this gives the finale a slightly new wrinkle, it's nothing jaw-dropping persay. But the finale nonetheless works because it concludes in a very powerful fashion with one of the two meeting a very gruesome end. "Laid To Rest" is a break even slasher film in my estimation. It's got alot of good and alot of bad. Might wanna try overlooking some serious character issues if you wanna enjoy this one.

Positives:The lead girl is good-looking, chromeskull is a great killer, lots of blood and gore and gruesome deaths, a great ending, minus the suspect twist.

Negatives:Too many annoying, useless, and cliche characters. Also logic and common sense seemed to be lost on alot of the characters. I found that rather annoying.

Overall:Two out of four stars.





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