LAID TO REST review by Gary Murray (now on DVD)

Horror films seem to be produced in cycles that run about 20 years apart. The teen years of the last century saw the first elements of horror, mostly exposed on the screen by the German expressionists. In the 1930's the world was treated to the Universal Studios creatures such as Dracula and Frankenstein. The 1950's saw the introduction of blood with the Hammer classics. But by far, the bloodiest flicks seem to have come from the 1970's, with the highly successful horror classics The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween.

Today, with the advent of home viewing, this genre has once again flourished. The teens of this generation are clamoring for more and more, more blood and more thrills. The newest flick to get a limited release before going to video is Laid To Rest.

The film opens with a young woman who wakes in a locked coffin. Twisting her body, she flips the death box over and is sprung from her confines. She has no memory of anything that has happened to her before that moment. But she is almost instantly attacked by a mad man in a chrome skull. This crazed killer is a maniacal machine, able to use any means at his disposal to create mayhem. He is darkly clothed with a video camera perched on his shoulder.



The Girl escapes from the killer and befriends a couple. This trio is almost instantly attacked. But the man believes that help is on the way by of his relative. For some reason The Girl knows that no help is coming. As The Girl finds others to help her plight, they also become victims of this chrome faced murderer. The flick goes down, as it always does, to a battle between the white clothed girl and the black clothed baddie.

Robert Hall has worked special effects on flicks such as Pineapple Express and Quarantine, two films that could not have been any less similar. Here he gets behind the lens and directs with a strong sense of style and story. He takes the confusion of the situation and gives it a Twilight Zone style of expectations. With all the twists that are put in films today, there isn't much of a surprise as to the what and the why, but the journey of getting there is all the fun.



The film takes place during one night, so both the physical event and the atmosphere are both dark. The second unit fills the scenes with a foggy black mist that parallels the actions of the characters. And when the blood flies, which is in buckets, it almost becomes a macabre role in its own right.

Bobbi Sue Luther does a standout job as The Girl. Since she has no back-story or history, there is nothing for her to work with in building a character. This blank slate makes for finding a grounding of the part to be that much harder. There is this lost little lamb element to her story but she also kicks some butt when she has to. Screaming like Jamie Lee Curtis did all those years ago, she adds a human element to the terror.

Most of the cast is just there to be victims of the killer, a means to get to the final confrontation. While all seem to do fine jobs with their roles, their written actions are mostly weak as compared to the main performance. Some of the actors in these roles are in high demand on television and this is just another step to separate them from being stereotyped in a genre.

If you are looking for a thrill ride, then don't miss Laid To Rest. It is in a very limited release until it becomes available on DVD on April 21.

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