This movie has been on my radar for awhile, mainly since my local Target carries Chromeskull: Laid To Rest 2 and it got me asking out-loud “What the fuck is Laid to Rest 1?” Then I’m reminded by Target staff that I’m banned from there for talking to myself and immediately kicked out.

Anyway. Laid to Rest.

It’s a slasher movie. I could just tell you that and let you figure out what happens and be done with it, but god damn it, Dylan and Kai entrusted onto ME to tell you fine people about horror movies and that’s what I’m gonna do!

The movie starts with a chick waking up in a coffin. She has no idea how she got there, where she’s at, or even who she is. And she can’t remember simple things like calling 911 or what a coffin is. She’s immediately greeted by Richard Lynch, who is one of my favorite B-Movie actors. Fuckin’ look up Richard Lynch if you need to. I love the guy. He plays a creep in every movie and he’s wonderful. I guess we all need our own Joesph Gordon-Levitt. (A test to see if Sebastian reads my reviews.)

Anyway, the chick, who the movie calls Princess due to a memory she had, is happy to see Richard Lynch. Bad idea. Behind Richard Lynch is a tall scary dude wearing a chrome mask of a skull. This is Chromeskull. He’s a serial killer. And he tapes his murders and sends the tapes to the police. And he has a shoulder mount for his camera. Wow.

Chromeskull kills Richard Lynch (BOO!) and starts chasing Princess. She eventually runs out the door and starts limping down the road when Tucker shows up. Tucker looks like he’s played by Bill Goldberg, but sadly, he is not. That would’ve made the movie totally awesome.

And before you ask, no not the same Tucker from Tucker and Dale vs Evil.

Tucker, despite being a stranger in a horror film, is friendly and wants to care for Princess. He takes her home where his wife Cindy isn’t too happy about their sudden guest. She thinks Princess is a prostitute because of the way she’s dressed. I dunno, she looks like a receptionist to me, but what do I know? I have a penis.

Princess can’t remember anything because she has a head wound. While everyone in the house is trying to sleep, Chromeskull shows up and kills Cindy. Tucker freaks out and drags Princess away. Meanwhile Cindy’s brother shows up because he saw Tucker with a strange girl and wants to investigate. He bought his super hot girlfriend with him and yadda yadda yadda they both get killed in awesome gory fashion.

Tucker and Princess show up at Stephen’s house. Stephen was bugging me cause he looked familiar and I couldn’t place him. Looking at IMDb I find out the guy playing Stephen also played Roach in The People Under The Stairs! WOW! This movie HAS a good budget after all.

Anyway, Stephen is a computer nerd who doesn’t use phones but he has a computer from 1990 and Windows 95! Don’t fuck with him! He emails 911 for help but Tucker and Princess wants to drive to the police station, which depending on what scene you watch in the movie, is either 10 miles away or 500 miles away. And nobody keeps their cars gassed up. And nobody carries cell phones. Besides Chromeskull. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Princess starts acting annoying as fuck when she insists they stop at the funeral home she escaped from to “try to remember something”. Stephen tries to out-annoy her by crying about his dead Mom being inside. Chromeskull just stands outside, waiting for some reason.

It’s revealed that Chromeskull killed all the cops in this town and he’s hiding all sorts of dead bodies in coffins in a barn behind the funeral home. And all the dead bodies are full of hot chicks all cut to pieces. As I write this right after watching the whole movie, I’ll tell you (SPOILER ALERT) we never find out what exactly he’s doing or why he didn’t kill Princess right away. And frankly, thinking about it, I’m annoyed.

We do know that Chromeskull likes to video tape all the murders, like I said, and he only talks using text messages on his phone. And apparently he was working with Richard Lynch to hide all the bodies. Again, none of this is explained.

Tucker goes back to get Cindy’s body only to find it gone. Well, that was a pointless trip. He comes back, shoots Chromeskull, and they all steal Chromeskull’s car to get some kind of help. Inside the trunk is Cindy’s dead body.

Princess is watching the video tape footage of Chromeskull chasing her from earlier when the batteries run out. OH! So, they have Chromeskull’s cellphone, but there’s a password lock. They try all kinds of words but none work, so they abandon it. While Princess is watching the footage, we see HIM PUT IN THE PASSWORD TO THE FUCKING PHONE BUT SHE DOESN’T SAY SHIT ABOUT IT!!! ARRGH!!

Anyway.

Princess, proving how annoying she is, decides to steal the car from Tucker and Stephen to go to the store to get more batteries for the camera. Jesus, lady, I’m sure Stephen has batteries at his house. But we need to set the finale, so fuck it.

She arrives at the store where she meets two douchebags going to a rave, and Chromeskull suddenly shows up. He makes her go into the store to by more….videotapes?! Wait! You RAN OUT OF BATTERIES, NOT VIDEOTAPES! MAKE SOME FUCKING SENSE! I know you’re a cheap slasher flick who’s mere existance relies on gore, but FUCKING MAKE SENSE!!!

The store clerk realizes something is wrong and decides to take out Chromeskull, which doesn’t work out so well. Tucker and Stephen show up and they all have a final showdown, which results in Tucker, Stephen, and one of the douchebags getting killed. The other douche goes and waits in the car.

So now it’s Princess and Chromeskull, which is the weirdest fucking sentence I’ve ever written and she finds out (SPOILER ALERT) she WAS a prostitute hired by Chromeskull in Miami. Wow. And suddenly, Princess has nice tits. I swear, the entire movie we never see her tits, but the instant we find out she’s a prostitute, tits are flying everywhere. It’s kinda strange, really.

I would explain how Princess killed Chromeskull but I don’t fully understand it myself. See, he uses this special glue to hold his mask onto his face. When it falls off, he goes to glue it back on, but I guess Stephen switched it with acid, which melts his face off. And that’s pretty much it. I guess. Again, not totally sure.

Can’t wait to see the sequel.

This movie was just alright. I knew it was a slasher flick, so I wasn’t expecting much. It’s got a lot of nice gore and Chromeskull is an interesting killer, but the acting is really off, scenes go on and on for no reason, and shit is never explained.  And it felt really long too, despite it only being an hour and a half. I think it was all the travelling back and forth on top of the fact the third act starts right at the 45 minute mark. It’s a strange feeling movie. Maybe it’d be better if I watched it with a bunch of slasher fans, but by myself I wasn’t impressed.

Next week: How does the sequel hold up? Probably not very well. But we’ll see.

♥♥

-Jason