Laid to Rest

Rating: ★★★½☆ 

Written & Directed By: Robert Hall

Starring: Bobbi Sue Luther, Kevin Gage, Lena Headey, Sean Whalen, Thomas Dekker

Plot Synopsis:

Laid to Rest is the terrifying story of a young girl (Bobbi Sue Luther) who wakes up in a casket with a traumatic head injury and no memory of her identity. She quickly realizes she was abducted by ChromeSkull (Nick Principe), a metal-masked serial killer with the money and means to emulate the 1980s Slashers. Isolated in an unfamiliar rural town, the Girl and those who have come to her aid must survive the night and outsmart the technologically inclined murderer who video records his vicious killings and is determined to finish his masterpiece tape featuring “the Girl.”

Review:

With over-saturation of remakes, re-imaginings, and reboots, it’s nice when a little slasher flick shows some originality.  Laid to Rest does owe a lot to slashers of the 80s, however, this low budget flick boasts some fantastic gore and a memorable baddie with Chrome Skull.

Not many movies these days have me wondering, “How in hell did they do that? HOW the @#!$@!! did they do THAT?!” Directed by Robert Hall (after his auto-biographical Lighting Bug) Laid to Rest has the best use of practical effects (with slight and effective CG tweeks) used in any recent horror/slasher flick.  Platinum Dunes’ Friday the 13th needs to sit down and watch Laid to Rest to take a few notes.  The things that happen to people at the hands of Chrome Skull are so glee-fully horrific, they demand multiple viewings just to appreciate the astounding detail put into each “death.”

Our lead in the film is director Robert Hall‘s wife Bobbi Sue Luther in her first feature length film.  The lack of experience shows mainly at the beginning.  Her character is suffering amnesia and it’s a bit grating.  However, as the film goes along, her character becomes more fleshed out and interesting.

Terminator: Salvation stars Lena Headey and Thomas Dekker make appearances here.  They don’t have huge roles, but it’s fun to see them here and they help elevate the film.  Also, Sean Whalen‘s performance should be noted as well.  All the supporting performances are decent.  Nothing spectacular, but not horrible either.

The stand-out performance of Laid to Rest belongs to Kevin Gage (Heat).  He’s most familiar as a bad guy in 99% of his roles, so it’s nice to see him as a good guy here.  There are moments of sensitivity and nuance that we’ve never seen from him, and it’s refreshing.  The final performance to mention would have to be Nick Principe as Chrome Skull himself.  He has no speaking parts, but the performance he gives behind the mask deserves a spot alongside Michael Myers and Jason Vorhees.

Laid to Rest‘s weakness has to be the plot and cinematography.  The characters are limited to a handful of  horror conventions such as: no phones, insanely slow internet service, cars that don’t run properly, characters staying in one spot waaaaaaaay too long.  But, this is all standard Slasher fodder, so you can’t read too much into things.  Plus, the baddie has so much custom equipment, you’d think someone would get suspicious. Finally, the camera work is a bit shoddy in places.  But, this is a low budget film.  What did you expect? For what it is, it works.

Laid to Rest is a return to old school slasher conventions.  Like Hatchet (although not played to comedy as much as Hatchet), this is an original and ambitious horror flick with a memorable baddie.  The gore and special effects are top notch, some of the best I’ve ever seen in a horror flick.  There’s a lot to love here if  your a horror/slasher fan, so what the hell are you doing still reading this?!

Rated R for pervasive strong bloody horror violence and gore, language, some sexual content, nudity and brief drug use.