Laid to Rest (UR-2009)

"Oh, yes, there will be blood" is one of my favorite tag lines for a movie. It was used for "Saw II", but could have easily been used for this movie. "Laid to Rest" is a low-budget slasher film that wants to be "Halloween" but falls well short. The movie follows the trials of "The Girl" (Bobbi Sue Luther) who wakes up as the movie begins in a casket. After freaking out (who wouldn't??), she manages to rock the casket, which falls over and she spills out. She finds herself in a mortuary, not knowing who she is or how she got there. Of course, that turns out to be a minor issue as she quickly learns she is being pursued by a psychotic killer who wears a chrome skull mask and videotapes his crimes. As the movie unfolds, she enlists the help of some others as "Chrome Skull" (Nick Principe) cuts a path of blood and destruction as he relentlessly pursues her. "Chrome Skull" doesn't waste time or take names as he wield his military-issue K-bar knife, killing people quickly and brutally along the way. The question that is never answered is: Having many opportunities to quickly dispatch our heroine, why does he never do so, seeming to want to "save her for later". We get to see a videotape late in the movie that explains how he met and captured her, but it doesn't even begin to explain why she is not "just another victim" (Of course, maybe it's simply that ol' Chrome Skull is a boob man). The film follows the "Halloween" framework of faceless boogeyman pursues determinedly pursues female victim, but this movie does not hold a candle to that classic. It did not bother me that Chrome Skull did not have a backstory as the mysteriousness of that faceless boogeyman could work, but they did try to hint at some kind of past and then never went anywhere with it, which did bother me some. The one scene I thought hit the mark was when Tucker (Kevin Gage), the kind-hearted stranger, separates himself from the group simply because he needs to "lose it" completely for a few minutes, breaking down crying over the horror he was witnessed to that point. That was a nice element of realism that almost elevated this movie above the genre. This movie was simply a non-stop bloodbath, but did not deviate from that enough to fulfill its promise.

Grade: D+

Trailer: