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I do not feel compelled to write a review of Laid to Rest because I want to relive the viewing experience, because I sure as hell don’t, and it is certainly not because anything in the film particularly merits my fingers tapping keys for it, because it sure as hell doesn’t. I am writing this negative review for two reasons: 1) If I can save just one person from making my mistake, namely thumbing through Redbox titles and thinking this one looks interesting, then I can go to my grave with a spring in my step, and 2) all of the people at the IMDb board talking this film up, and decrying anyone who pisses on it as “expecting too much”. Really? Is that your best fucking defense? That I expected too much? Jesus Christ, people. I expected a film that cared enough about the viewer to make even a modicum of sense, and to give me characters that I actually wanted to watch. Is that asking too much? I guess I am just a planet-sized bastard, then.
*There are spoilers in this review, but really, who gives a shit?* The film makes its first mistake right out of the gate. The basic premise that a woman wakes up with amnesia, in a coffin, is pretty cool, but here it is completely diluted by the opening credits montage establishing the horrific deeds of the film’s antagonist, the unfortunately-named serial killer Chrome Skull. Instead of being in the moment with her, feeling her confusion and terror, we merely sit around and wait for the boogeyman to jump out and go boo. Which is pretty much what happens. Even the wonderfully ancient and decrepit (yet still unbelievably creepy) Richard Lynch cannot save the opening scenes. Running away, the memory-deficient woman is happened upon by a burly, limping miner named Tucker, played by Kevin Gage, who can always be counted on to be wooden. Of course trouble follows the girl to his house, and Chrome Skull shows up and kills Tucker's wife (played by the beautiful and talented Lena Headey, adding a little gravitas to the film in her all too brief role) while the two dummies just stand around and shout No! Don’t! They then take a powder, and hook up with the dorky dude who played Frogurt on Lost, who doesn’t have a telephone because he loves technology, like his TRS-80 looking computer. The trio joins forces, I guess feeling they can be more ineffective as a unit than they could on their own. | Which we find out is a winning strategy when they fucking finally move their asses to the sheriff’s office. Apparently Chrome Skull can slaughter everyone in the sheriff’s office with time to spare to set up Rube Goldbergian decoys and traps, but can’t manage to stick his knife into a gimp, a dork, and a retard. He just ambles along with his silver mask on and a video camera perched on his shoulder like an idiotic cyber-pirate. Well, when he isn’t busy being in every place at once, always eighteen steps ahead of, behind, and to the side of his prey. This is the same brilliant killer who drives a luxury sedan with a license plate that says, get this, CHROMESKULL. And you have the balls to tell me I am expecting too much? |  Does't look at all like the T-800. |
I’m getting tired of thinking about this movie, so I will run it down real quick. The protagonists continue displaying an apoplexy of stupid and tedious behavior, with the addition of ever more mentally defective characters as we go along, and the killer continues being every place at once, being prepared for every variable, and continues not being challenged in any robust physical way by anybody. Being that writer/director Robert Hall is also a special effects and makeup man, yes, the film is full of admittedly cool gore, including a bunch of ladies in pieces in CS’s den of iniquity. But to make it perfectly clear: SCENES OF GORE DO NOT MAKE UP FOR A LAZY SCRIPT, LACK OF ADEQUATE DIRECTION, AND UNLIKABLE CHARACTERS. 
If only the film was as cool as this pic. | Then comes the ridiculously anticlimactic ending, which sort of peters off into nothingness. The killer is dispatched with little fanfare, the twist to the woman’s true identity is lackluster and serves no point to the story, and best of all, there is no insight whatsoever into CS’s persona. Nope. You never discover what his motivations are, how he gets away with his seemingly supernatural feats, or what is behind his goddamn mask in the first place. In mathematical terms, zero multiplied by zero is zero. There is no reason to watch this film. The villain is laughable, the characters are annoying, the kills are ho-hum, and you can see great gore happen in better films that actually care if you want to stab yourself in the face while watching them. |
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