There are those creative geniuses who can tap into popular culture and our innate fears to come up with some of the most fearsome and loathsome evil characters in cinema, bad guys that you recognise from their name or basic characteristics:
- Freddy – striped jumper, hat, scissor-gloves.
- Jason – Hockey mask.
- Michael Myers – Boilersuit, creepy melted Shatner mask.
Then there are the makeup and FX artists that lend credibility and the ‘Ewwww’ factor to the kills perpetrated by these monstrous beings, the guys that make sure the blood sprays in the right direction and the organs are eviscerated in alphabetical order.
Robert Hall, the director of both Laid to Rest and it’s similarly awful follow up ChromeSkull: Laid to Rest 2, is most definitely a member of the latter group, because there is zero evidence in either of these films that he knows anything about making a film.
Both are a gold mine for gorehounds though.
Laid to Rest
A girl awakens in pitch darkness. Upon emerging from the vampiric slumber chamber we realise she is fully dressed and intact, however she herself informs us that not only does she have no memory of how she came to be there, she does not even know who she is or anything about herself.
She is only ‘the Girl’, a confused young woman with a splitting headache and a limited vocabulary, like Paris Hilton sitting a written exam.
The Girl quickly works out that she is in a functional mortuary as the old man that seeks to release her from the locked room is gutted in front of her by a mysterious black leather clad bald man toting several weapons and wearing a stainless steel mask.
He is ChromeSkull and he inexplicably has vanity license plates proudly announcing it. Despite the numerous weapons his go-to is a large gleaming Rambo style knife, with which is an artiste. Given his apparel and number plates he is obviously not one for the background, in fact our silver faced amigo is apparently already a collector of pretty things – namely women – with whom he films with a Predator shoulder mounted camera and stores in the afore-mentioned coffins.
The Girl isn’t really worried too much about the backstory – and in truth neither is the director, because it hardly makes a lick of sense – she scarpers down the backroads where she is picked up by Tucker and taken to his redneck home to meet his partner Cindi (I’m making an editorial decision to guess she spells her name with an ‘i’).
But the metal faced gimp has obviously taken a liking to the Girl, and he shows up almost immediately with his toys. In future Cindi will have to spell her name with an RIP…
And so it goes, the Girl runs, bumps into someone, and finds them gutted by her silver-plated shadow and his big stabby thing.
I’ll concede happily that the makeup and gore effects are masterful, it’s everything else that is amateurish and confusing. What ChromeSkull wants, why he does it and how he came to be are all glossed over, and as far as why the cops can’t catch a sadistic multiple murderer who rocks signature plates I don’t know what to tell you.
Aside from welcome to the world of shitty horror movies.
Final Rating – 4 / 10. A painful exercise in deeply flawed franchise building from start to finish.
ChromeSkull: Laid to Rest 2
Now where did we leave off? Oh that’s right, me asleep and uninterested in Laid to Rest, unfortunately I rented a double DVD and feel duty bound to wrap this sucker up.
Remember the Girl? Don’t. Meet soon-to-be-blind Jess, our latest victim du jour. By the way, the fact that she is allegedly going blind is mentioned frequently but plays zero role in the story, which makes it valuable info…
Old Chromey, a little groggy from his bad case of death, takes a quick bath to get the juices flowing, whacks a coat of Armour-All on the old faceplate and he’s back in the game.
Wait a minute! Is that 90210’s own Brian Austin Green taking a break from appearing in the background of Megan Fox photos? Wow she must be pissed that he seems deliberately set upon ruining her career to the point she had to get pregnant to stay in the gossip magazines and remain relevant.
Anyway B.A.G. is Chromey’s right hand man who sports aspirations to the throne, I mean mask. Further proof that this is direct to DVD shlock is provided when we learn that Danielle Harris is somewhat of an adviser to the operation, which despite being half way through the second film still makes zero sense. Maybe she could have served as the audience narrator so we could lend some sense to this confusing mess? I mean who is ChromeSkull? How did he come to be? Why does he collect and kill? How does he have a large staff behind him? Why am I overthinking this when it’s obviously nothing more than a showcase for more gore and violence?
Speaking of, the gore is back with a capital G, which if you are a fan of the first must be good news, and if you’re not a fan of the first film you should really stay away from this.
The formula kicks back in like clockwork, random people walk between ChromeSkull and his target and get perforated and left like broken ragdolls in his wake. We never learn how he selects his latest victim, nor how he knows where all these random kids will be, he just shows up to kill. They could have at least said ‘look he’s magic alright!’ and I’d feel somewhat better. They don’t even bother with that.
One last nugget of logic. When cops show up to question some guy named Max who has just avoided the fate of his once-hot, now-dead flatmate, he breathlessly exclaims “My roommate didn’t answer”. Ignoring the blind terror in his eyes the cop calmly replies “That’s OK, she probably went for food or something”…
And they wonder why mass murderers get away with this stuff for so long. Maybe it’s because after ChromeSkull slays three cops and two civilians in quick succession the cops finally corner him in a thought to be abandoned building and plan their entry to take this vicious psychopathic killer down.
All four of them… with no back up.
Final Rating – 4 / 10. The only thing remotely great about these films are the gore effects, this despite a bad guy who might even be decent in the right movie. DAMN YOU SAW!!!
Duology Rating – 4 / 10. If you have to pick one. Pick neither. If they really force you, shoot yourself if the head. It’s better than the alternative.
