Laid to Rest (Review)

Laid to Rest

Laid to Rest (2009)

Directed by Robert Hall

Welcome to Chromeskull's world.

Our new slasher on the block Chromeskull will be remembered for his style, his knife and his damn sicko looking mask.

Laid to Rest is the best techno slasher movie of the 21st century. If Hatchet was old school American horror, Laid to Rest is new school American horror.

What Robert Hall has created here is purely an homage to all the slashers films that have come before. It's also a pure millenium based slasher film that is so sly and witty and full of top notch splatter and gore we all need to give him a standing O.

Laid to Rest should be seen if you call yourself a horror fan. It's easily one of the best horror movies of 2009.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

A terrifying story of a young girl who wakes up in a casket with a traumatic head injury and no memory of her identity. She quickly realizes she was abducted by a Deranged Serial Murderer and in an isolated rural town she must survive the night and outsmart the technologically inclined killer who is hellbent on finishing what he started.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

As always, we here at the jaded viewer go through our "what makes a good slasher movie" list.

Does Laid to Rest achieve everything on this list?

1.) Is there a mysterious, insanely strong, ridiculed as a child, deformed, inbred redneck slasher?

Don't know if he was ridiculed as a child, is inbred or a redneck. But he is mysterious and he is fucking strong. Chromeskull is like a Patrick Bateman carbon copy. Clean black suit, a haliburton case full of of your standard slasher supplies, an advanced shoulder strapped HD cam and a damn scary, intimidating mask made out of chrome. Oh and he's got a wicked knife.

CHECK!

2.) Gratuitous, over the top, super fleshy nudity (with Grade A boobage)?

Sorta check. Some boobage but without the full or partial frontal nudity

3.) Stereotypical teenage caricatures who die gruesome and horrific over the top deaths?

Sorta check. Sorta? What do I mean? Here are a list of our characters.

1.) A big breasted final girl (who has no name and is referred to as THE GIRL)
2.) A rough and kick ass local
3.) A nerdy momma's boy geek
4.) 2 stereotypical teenagers (one is Thomas Dekker from Sarah Connor Chronicles!)
5.) A bunch of victim fodder (includes Lena Heady from Sarah Connor Chronicles!)

4.) No Plot?

Check.

5.) Kills by our slasher that make you go "Fuck yeah!"

Check. So many I was going fuck yeah this is fuckin awesome.

6.) Gore, lots of it. Like serious decapitation, dismemberment, impalement, frenzy steroid rages and blood shooting out at various penetration wounds, limbs a flailing and mindless splatter and mayhem

Check. Laid to Rest has the most creative kills I've seen in quite a while. The special effects and makeup department did a fuckin awesome job.

Here is your Gore-ipedia. These may sound vague and cliched but when seen they are brilliantly executed to perfection.

1.) Metal pole to the stomach
2.) Knife to the head
3.) Knife to the jaw and slashed up face trauma
4.) Knife slashing stomach intenstine spewage
5.) Shotgun to the head
6.) Head explosion thru car product
7.) Slashed throat (x2!)
8.) Face melting trauma

These were such great kills, all done wickedly by Chromeskull. His technique, just utterly flawless.

7.) Geeky leader who takes charge of the hapless group as they try to escape who befriends a hot girl who knows about the "legend" (there's always a legend no one believes)

Check. Geeky leader doesn't take charge but finds out about the legend via the interweb.

8.) Funny yet ill timed dialogue but also various quips and one liners that are funny only the first time around (yet somehow funny again when you buy the DVD and only when you're stoned)

Check.

9.) Final girl goes all final girly?

Check.

10.) Wildly ambigious ending that can be used to warrant a sequel?

Sorta check. Ending seems to warrant an actual ending. But who knows.

Nude-ipedia

Nada

WTF moment

Chromeskull removes his mask (you'll see)

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

Laid to Rest was directed by Robert Hall who is a legend in the special effects world with his company Almost Human. He worked on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles hence why Lena Heady and Thomas Dekker make extensive cameos in this film. He even knows Jonathan Schaech who almost makes a cameo. Bobbie Sue Luther who plays The Girl is Hall's wife.

Why is Laid to Rest one of the best horror movies this year?

Hall avoids all the stupid shit that's invaded horror of late. It's not a fuckin remake. It's not torture porn. It's not something supernatural. We never find out why Chromeskull kills (because no motivation is better) Chromeskull doesn't talk. Chromeskull techs up and texts and cams his terror and he has a fuckin awesome-rific mask.

That's not to say this little slasher film doesn't fall victim to what slasher films are known for. Bad acting, BIG, HUGE plot holes, and total lack of logic.

But fuck logic.

When Chromeskull is taking care of business, you'll be throwing that logic out the window.

Rating:

Check out the Red Band HD trailer.








Tags:
laid to rest, laid to rest red band trailer , american horror , serial killer movies, gratuitous nudity, lena headey, laid to rest review, horror movies 2009,

Categories: chromeskull, horror movies 2009, laid to rest, laid to rest review, laid to rest trailer, lena headey, serial killer movie, splatter, splatter gore, thomas dekker

The Broken (Review)

The Broken

The Broken (2008)

Directed by Sean Ellis

I saw the trailer for Sean Ellis Cashback but never saw the movie. It does look really cool.

So instead I saw The Broken. Part of the After Dark Horrorfest flicks.

I can understand After Dark films wanted to have a collection of different horror subgenres to be part of its 8 films to die for.

So what we get here is an anti-gorehound movie for the masses. Very tension filled, suspense driven, M. Knight endingly BORING SNOOZE-A-RAMA.

The movie is filled with moments of nothingness. Absolutely nothing. By nothing of course I mean scene after scene of filler. When a movie starts to flashback to something that happened 15 minutes ago showcasing something dreamlike, you know you're in trouble.

In addition to that ZZZZ-fest on the eyes, all we see is Lena Headey aimlessly walking from one place to another trying to be scared (or Ellis trying to scare us). Which of course isn't scary at all.

All this adds up to a meta-horror universe of Poe and Barker like stories that work out to probably be a good read but makes a horrible movie.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

On a busy street in London, Gina thinks she sees herself drive past in her own car. Stunned by this strange event, Gina follows the mystery woman up to her apartment. From here, events take an eerie turn for the worse until Gina's awareness slides from solid reality into a world that will haunt more than just her nightmares.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

The beginning of a movie has to set up everything so the ending will pay off. But when the set up is long and arduous and ridiculously pointless, you begin to even wonder if the pay off will be worth it.

The Broken's beginning and middle are so broken (pun so fuckin intended) that by the time you get to the "AH HA!" ending, you don't give 2 shits.

Lena Headey (she's actually British you Sarah Connor fans!) plays a radiologist in London. Her family/friends includes:

1.) Her Dad (he's American)
2.) Typical brother dude
3.) Brother's girlfriend
4.) Her boyfriend, some French dude

She sees somebody that resembles herself, we join Gina on figuring out WTF is going on. Soon she starts noticing odd things (aka more nothingness) and a lot of broken mirrors (even more nothingness).

Her family starts to get killed off by their own set of dopplegangers and soon she's next on the hit list.

Suffice it to say, if I kept going I'd probably give away too much.

For a 90 minute movie, it felt like 100 years. Effective movies that build suspense and make the audience hooked to their seats give their audience some idea of what the hell is going on. At no point in the Broken did I get that.

Sure, I was speculating on a wide variety of what was stalking Gina. Was it......

1.) Vampires?
2.) Time traveling assassins?
3.) Evil Dopplegangers?
4.) Ghosts?
5.) Evil Doppleganger, vampire ghost, time traveling assassins?

One of those is true by the way. But by the end, I didn't really care. Usually, I'll IMDB Trivia a movie or Wikipedia or Google to get more info.

There was no way I was gonna give this movie too much of my brain power.

Here are a few fun facts from The Broken:

1.) Times somebody takes a shower: 3
2.) Times we see Lena Headey nude: 1 (boobies!)
3.) Times we see a fake looking crash test dummy in a dreamlike car accident: 4
4.) Times we see the London Underground: 2
5.) Times we see a broken mirror: too many to count

Gore-ipedia (if you want to be shocked don't read)

Suffocationand blunt trauma
Mouth trauma
Vehicular crash test dummy trauma

Nude-ipedia (because you like boobies)

Lena Headey gets nude!!! (only boobies and walking around nakedness)
British girl gets naked

WTF moment

The ending that I saw coming a billion light years away

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

I don't discriminate in my horror movies. I am a big gorehound but I also dig the psychological horror, the Mist-like horror films that are all about suspense.

But this really was a big snoozefest and if it wasn't seeing Lena Headey nude, this would have been totally pointless.

Be sure to check out the used DVD bin at your Walmart. This is where you will find the Broken.


Rating:
The Trailer






Tags:
after dark horrorfest, after dark horrorfest 2009 , lena headey nude , 8 films to die for, horrorfest, after dark horrorfest 2009 trailers, gratuitous nudity, horror movies of 2009, the broken,the broken review

Categories: after dark horrorfest 2009, after dark horrorfest 2009 reviews, after dark horrorfest 3, british horror, doppleganger, lena headey, lena headey naked, lena headey nude, the broken, the broken review

Laid to Rest (Trailer)

So I'm watching a terrible episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, I decided to IMDB Sarah Connor herself, Lena Headey. I wanted to know what other movies besides 300 she's done. And what do I find? She's in a horror movie....and get this!!....it's with her TV son John Connor! (Thomas Dekker).

Wow talk about a small world.

This blood-irific splatter fest is called Laid to Rest, coming in 2009.

The trailer looks gooey and has shades of arterial spraying. Fuckin trailers always make even the shittiest movie look good.

And the funniest thing is in the trailer, the serial killer looks like a freakin terminator!!!

I'm fuckin serious. He's got silver skull mask (ahem!) and red scope thingy attached to his shoulder (double ahem!) And he's terminating the shit out of people from the looks of it.

Will this maniac killer be a cyborg from the future? Where's the hot teen Terminator to protect young John Connor? Where is David Silver? Can he save his nephew by DJing a good beat?

I'm going to get so confused.

Plot-o-rama....................

A terrifying story of a young girl who wakes up in a casket with a traumatic head injury and no memory of her identity. She quickly realizes she was abducted by a Deranged Serial Murderer and in an isolated rural town she must survive the night and outsmart the technologically inclined killer who is hellbent on finishing what he started.

Check out the Red Band HD trailer.





Tags:
laid to rest, laid to rest red band trailer , american horror , serial killer movies, gratuitous nudity, lena headey, terminator sarah connor chronicles, horror movies 2009,

Categories: bloody violence, horror movies 2009, laid to rest, laid to rest trailer, lena headey, serial killer movie, splatter, splatter gore, terminator the sarah connor chronicles, thomas dekker