I may be in the minority as one of the horror fans who loved Laid to Rest (full review here). I gave it 3 spinkicks even ranked it #8 on my Top 10 Horror Movies of 2009. So no doubt I would have the director, Robert Hall on my radar to see what he would come up with next.
So news via Bloody Disgusting and HorrorMovies.ca got me excited when the teaser trailer for Hall's new film debuted. It's called Old Scratch and it takes that record played backward for Satanic verses in for a spin.
Old Scratch follows Neven, a washed up musician living his his own faded shadow in Atlanta. One night, after another sparsely attended gig one his his former bandmates Terry shows up and plays one of their own demo records backwards with fatal consequences.
Now he must return to his roots and revisit a past he had hoped would stay forever buried. He has to find all six cursed demo records and decipher the eerie hidden messages before more blood is shed.
It stars Mr. John Connor himself and LTR alum Thomas Dekker, Ashley Laurence and Kevin Gage.
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.
From Within was my 3rd choice of excited movies I wanted to see out of the After Dark Horrorfest movies that came out last year.
Small American town, suicides, teen John Connor. Had to be at least decent right?
Wrong.
It's just a Ring knock off through and through.
This is basically what happens when America tries to make a basically Japanese shock horror film. The Japanese filmmakers will go all out to obliterate your senses with scary quick scares, nightmare visuals and hard R scenarios.
In a western reboot, it's just done too PG-13 to give a crap about.
The best thing From Within had going for it was the poster above and for me the panning credit sequence at the end of the movie.
Boring Plot-O-Matic
The residents of a small American town begin to die one-by-one apparently by suicide..
Awesome Review-O-Matic
There is a movie called Suicide Circle that came out of Japan in 2002. The opening scene has 54 high schools jumping to their deaths in front of a subway train. That's how you start a movie about a plague of suicides. By just giving the audience a WTF moment straight out.
And don't give me any M. Knight shit. The Happening wasn't happening at all.
So when your rash of suicide movie starts out and you have two goth kids hanging out contemplating just aint gonna cut it.
Been there, done that. So when the goth kid blows his brains out, we start on our journey of a mysterious evil force making people kill themselves.
It's a rash of sui-palooza. Next, the goth dude's girl stabs herself with scissors. Then an antiques dealer hangs himself followed by his niece slicing her wrists on broken glass. Later we meet our final girl, Lindsay and her boy friend Dylan. Dylan is the son of the local Jerry Falwell and they love the religion.
Later, Lindsay's BFF car explodes (Final Destination style) and her step mom gets the urge to drink some Drano.
All this happens because each of these victims sees their doppleganger chasing them with blue eyes, vein-y faces and eyes that cry blood.
This is as scary as sitting in a traffic jam.
We meet the other local townies, all Republican, God fearing, evangelist listening gun totin rednecks. As the suicides become rampant, they start to blame the crazy family that lives deep in the backwoods. Because every small American town has got that family.
This brings us to John Connor...ahem I mean Aidan (Thomas Dekker from Sarah Connor Chronicles). He's the goth kid's brother and his mom was mysteriously killed years ago by the townsfolk in a burning thingmajig.
Basically it's your mom got killed by townies so I have to evoke revenge movie by cursing the town. You'd think you could hire Freddy Kreuger for this gig. Alas, our final girl is next on the curse hit list and it's a race against time to stop the damn videotape...err I mean cursed spell book from killing her.
The thrilling conclusion is clunky and without any thrills. It was thrilless.
It ends with your now cliched mysterious evil gets the last laugh, which to me I usually like but when you don't really care about any of the characters, I was so indifferent.
And that's the thing. These genre of movies, "rash of suicide" movies have to result in a big payoff. If they don't, the build up just falls flat.
Each of the characters was so boring, it was impossible to pull for any of these people to survive. Lindsay our final girl, was so goodie two shoes, innocent and tolerant you just wanted to throw up. Our resident warlock Aiden was Mr. Mysterious I thought stage smoke was going to accompany him everywhere. Our our main big angsty bad, Bible belt freak Dylan was so McCain-ish, I wanted to go all Obama on him (I have no idea what that means)
All in all, the movie is a straight to DVD PG-13 snooze. It begs the question how these movies even end up as part of the supposed elite 8 of the After Dark fest.
Gore-ipedia (if you want to be shocked don't read)
Gunshot to head Scissors neck trauma Hanging Slicing wrists on broken glass Drano drinking 4th degree burns
Nude-ipedia (because you like boobies)
Nada...does cleavage count?
WTF moment The closing credit montage (probably the best scene in the movie)
The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis
It's a PG-13 rash of suicides movie. I didn't think that was even possible but From Within is it. Even The Happening got an R and that sucked. Nothing really special here. Go watch a remake or something.
The fact that I couldn't even get images of the suicides in the movie says it all.
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.
I may be in the minority as one of the horror fans who loved Laid to Rest (full review here). I gave it 3 spinkicks even ranked it #8 on my Top 10 Horror Movies of 2009. So no doubt I would have the director, Robert Hall on my radar to see what he would come up with next.
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