Destro Kills

Laid to Rest (2009)
Directed by Robert Hall, Screenplay by Robert Hall

A man with a shiny face tried to make me dead.

Dramatis Personae
The Girl aka Princess....Bobbi Sue Luther, wife of Robert Hall
Tucker.......Kevin Gage (aka Stitch Hessian, Jayne Cobb's long lost partner in the Jaynestown episode of Firefly.)
Cindy, wife of Tucker...Lena Headey (Queen Gorgo from 300, Sarah Connor from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles)
Johnny, brother of Cindy....Johnathon Schaech
Jamie, girlfriend of Johnny....Jana Kramer (girlfriend of Johnathon Schaech at the time, now soon to be ex-wife of Johnathon Schaech)
Steven....Sean Whalen
Mr. Jones....Richard Lynch
Tommy....Thomas Dekker (John Connor from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.)
Chrome Skull...Nick Principe
Young Store Clerk...Lucas Till
Anthony....Anthony Fitzgerald
Bound Girl....Seraphine DeYoung
Sheriff Bates...Mark Bentley

It's not easy being a killer who wears a chrome mask with a video camera perched on your shoulder like a pirate's parrot. It's a lot of work to keep that mask on your face (it's not like you can walk into Home Depot and ask what glue is best for keeping chrome attached to skin) and making sure that camera is pointed in the right direction and doesn't come flying off while you go about your killing spree eats up a lot of precious mental energy that might be better spent on figuring out which direction your victim is going to run and which weapon to hurl at them. But this is what you get when serial killer identity is Chrome Skull instead of The Stealthy Assassin. Chrome Skull makes videos as a trophy and (perhaps wisely) doesn't trust a videographer to follow him around as he does his thing.
His thing, of course, is slicing people up in ingenious ways.

We first come across Chrome Skull through The Girl who wakes up in a coffin in a funeral parlor with a bad case of amnesia and a worse case of I'm-about-to-be-brutally-murdered-by-Destro's-evil-cousin. The Girl doesn't even know her own name or how she ended up wherever it is she has found herself.
Now, one of the more interesting choices in the film is the attempt (not always successful) to decouple the violence of the film from sexuality, at least from the audience perspective. While the killer is clearly getting thrills (sexual or otherwise) from his violent activities, there is a concerted effort to take away the sexual exploitation element in this film. This is chiefly expressed in the way The Girl (who is unmistakably attractive) is dressed in loose-fitting clothes and the pure shock of the killings depicted as opposed to the kind of joyful sexualized slaughter that you get in something like the latest reboot of Friday the 13th. The message of Laid to Rest seems to expressly be that while Chrome Skull is getting aroused by capturing and slaughtering people you, the audience, shouldn't be aroused by what he's doing. The director and his wife could have easily exploited her obvious attractiveness to sucker in more viewers by having her scamper around in a thong while being threatened and brutalized by the masked demon but they decided to try something different and for that alone they earn some of my gratitude. The way horror films and especially the slasher and torture subgenres conflate sexuality with violence is trully messed up because inevitably they tend to trade on and depend on the conflation that is supposed to be perverse and evil. Torture porn depends on you, the audience, developing a desire to see brutality inflicted on someone else and deriving some enjoyment out of it. It's sick. When the sexual element is added in it becomes more sick. Old-fashioned gore and its contemporary incarnations are all about the technological joy of the special effects--e.g. how awesome it is to figure out a way of making something that looks like someone's jaw was ripped off causing a fountain of blood to spurt like a geyser. Torture porn is about wanting to see an object of desire violated in some fashion. That's what the difference is. Laid to Rest has gore, but it is a film that in some ways critiques the voyeurism. In short, it is not coincidental that Chrome Skull is walking around with a camera perched on his shoulder like a parrot. The taping and the voyeurism is essential to Chrome Skull's identity as a sick bastard. It is also crucial to the critique of the kind of folks who get off on watching films of people being tortured. Laid to Rest isn't a sick film because it takes no enjoyment of Chrome Skull's methods. This is not to say that his slicing and dicing of people is by any means sanitized, it's just that Hall makes a good-faith effort to remind us that the killer is bad and that if we want to enjoy what he's doing then we're also bad. It's a point that is better made in The Last Horror Movie, but again I have to credit Hall and Luther for trying for something better with this film.

Speaking of something better, this film was itself a product of the hiatus in industry productions that was a result of WGA strike. (The same strike that resulted in Doctor Horrible's Sing-along Blog.) Sometimes I think we could all use a few more writer's strikes in Hollywood. The results of the last one were outstanding.

Of course, while the main part of the film tries to play down the sexual element of the violence this only comes after the opening titles which are combined with a greatest hits of Chrome Skull montage that takes us to Bobbi Sue locked in the coffin. It's not like we are unaware that Chrome Skull is a crazy killer taking out his sexual frustrations with a knife. It's just that we would usually get all that torture as the main event. Whereas here it's just the intro to something a bit more interesting. The amnesiac victim's memory is so bad she doesn't even know the word "coffin" which she refers to as a "dead box" and when she tries to call for help she doesn't even know that 911 is the number to call. (Luckily someone was kind enough to leave a note next to the phone about the emergency number.) Comic elements pop up, like when Mr. Jones, the old man at the funeral parlor is scared by the shaking of the dead box and then when he sees the girl locked in a room and tries to get her out his death while trying to put his key in the lock has so little suspense for us in the audience that while it is gruesome (and terrifying for the people in the film) it is almost funny for us. (And when we find out more about Chrome Skull and the old man it seems like he may even have had it coming.)
Meanwhile when Tucker shows up in his plain-looking van and gives the Girl a ride it seems like he will either turn out to be the killer (he's not) or that this will devolve into some sort of pornographic interlude. (It doesn't.) I can't believe that this is an accident. I think Hall plays on what have become atrocious conventions of the slasher genre to try something different. So Tucker gives the Girl a ride and then takes her home where she's offered a space on the couch, though with some strong reservations from Tucker's wife, Cindy.

CINDY: Are you out of your mind? We don't even know her. She's probably one them crystal meth tweakers.

When the Girl starts talking, though Cindy shows some heart and sees her as a genuine victim and shows genuine sympathy. The same is true for Tucker, who turns out to be just a nice guy trying to do someone a favor. Of course, if you're a bald guy with a bum leg and a goatee and you're married to Lena Headey (even small town Southern Lena Headey) then it's a lot easier to pick up the amnesiac girl without any ulterior motive. Besides, Cindy is a real firecracker and it's clear that Headey is getting some enjoyment out of playing a sassy rural middle class woman. Sadly, she doesn't get too much enjoyment out of it because before you know it Chrome Skull has tracked down Princess Gemstone (the only name she can remember from her childhood is that of a doll she had.) Cindy is last seen hanging upside down from her bedroom window with a Chrome Skull sticking his big knife in her ear. It's incredibly gruesome, like a lot of violence in horror movies--but what sets it apart is that Tucker sees it and the most important part of this isn't the tortuous killing but the dramatic impact of Cindy's death on Tucker. He tries to trade his life for hers. He's broken, his life is shattered at that moment and then only thing that stops him from hobbling over and ending his own life right there in a duel to the death with Chrome Skull is that he's drawn away by the pleas of the girl who may yet have a chance to escape. From here on out, if Tucker is the kind of guy we're beginning to think he is, then it's a death match between him and Chrome Skull and Tucker just wants to make sure that Chrome Skull dies with him.

And again, Chrome Skull isn't some sort of supernaturally gifted killer. Heck, Tucker managed to stick him pretty good and knock him to the ground. Now, if the death of Cindy was meant to convey dramatic depth, what happens to Cindy's brother and his girlfriend is just a classic case of padding the body count. Johnny and Jamie pull up in their car right as Tucker and Princess escape, which means they've stumbled right into Chrome Skull's kill zone. If Cindy’s death was tragic then this pair is the comic counterpoint. They neatly take the place of Tucker and Princess who have managed to escape (for now) and their deaths are classic horror movie staples. You know they don’t stand much of a chance, especially since they are quite ignorant of the danger that is around them. Jamie’s first line is a question near and dear to the heart of anyone who’s ever been somewhere they don’t want to be watching something they don’t want to watch, like for instance a tepid revue of Cole Porter tunes by and for geriatrics.

Jamie: Why are we here, Johnny? We could have stayed home for some lovin’.

Why are we here, indeed? To this seemingly existential question Johnny gives us the stand-up answer that he saw his brother-in-law with a strange woman earlier in his truck earlier in the evening and he’s going to tell his sister what he saw. The price of his fraternal devotion/nosiness is to have a knife hurtled into his face at great velocity (Chrome Skull’s field of vision from behind the mask doesn’t seem to intrude upon his accuracy) and then have his face cut off entirely. For those who enjoy technical effects this is quite a marvel. For those who enjoy the thought of seeing Johnathon Schaech’s face being cut off this is a double bonus. For those who are repelled by such brutality, then this would be exactly the kind of thing about a movie like this that you don’t want to see.

Actually, it’s Chrome Skull vs. Jamie that is exactly the kind of traditional horror movie match-up that is disturbing. It’s a little like watching Dick Cheney shoot a turkey that’s chained to a post. From the moment Johnny is killed and Jamie starts screaming you know she doesn’t have a chance of making it out of here alive. She’s trapped in a car and even if she makes it out of there Chrome Skull clearly has the edge on her with his knife throwing abilities. (Did he work in a circus? Who knows?) With Tucker and the Girl already on the run it would take a bizarrely innovative storyteller to create a loose end in the script by giving Jamie a chance. So from the outset we know she’s going to die and it’s just a matter of how it will happen. This is the essence of the sadism of horror films and it goes a long way to undercut some of the more interesting developments that this film makes in the genre. As in most horror films this situation is a foregone conclusion. There is utterly no suspense about whether or not the victim will be killed, it is only the means that remains to be seen.
But what other options are there? Killing her is the fastest way to get the antagonist back on the trail of our heroes. Jamie and Johnny are merely obstacles in the way of the main conflict. But what if she made it out? That would leave Chrome Skull in a quandary. He has too many targets on the loose. It, in fact, creates quite an unusual crisis for a horror film villain. And a third option would be to have Jamie actually defeat Chrome Skull, but that would turn the rest of the film into an unusual film about post-horror damage control and reconstruction. (An idea, which may yet find its day.)
But the truth is that Jamie is a relatively annoying character who only gains our sympathy once it’s clear that her candle is about to be snuffed out. In her attempt to escape the car she gets a bad slice between her fingers and then after making it out of the car she is obviously cut quickly but keeps running toward the house where the sight of Cindy’s body dangling from the window (why couldn’t she or Johnny see it there before, you may wonder?) stops her in her tracks and only then does she notice that the cut she received across her midriff had opened her up all the way to her innards. (I suppose that’s what we may call near-disembowelment.) This is not unlike many an action film where a person doesn’t quite realize they’ve been beheaded until their head starts sliding off the neck. Again, the gruesome special effects are very well done but there is something extra unsettling about the way the girl never had a chance. (Neither, for that matter did Cindy in her brief encounter with Chrome Skull already in a position to kill her.)

Meanwhile Tucker and the Girl seek help from a computer nerd named Steven who unfortunately doesn’t own a phone but uses his computer to try to get in touch with the sheriff. Steven’s mother recently died and we will soon learn that she was taken to the same mortuary where we first met Chrome Skull. Now, here’s the paradox of Steven: he’s a computer nerd who very quickly runs down information online about the killer (who we learn has killed around 30 or 40 women in the Florida, Alabama, Georgia area and who sends the videos to the police) but when he prints out the information it’s on his aging dot-matrix printer. Really? Dot matrix? It’s like running into a technological wizard who’s really good with a slide-rule. It’s unusual to say the least.
So, he prints up information about the girl which Tucker reads and then puts away in his shirt. Now we have our team together, who for the sake of argument we will call the DeChromers. Tucker, the strong man out for vengeance, Princess the amnesiac girl who may have special powers (dare we hope?) and Steven the reluctant techie who would rather stay home.

Steven: My stomach hurts. I can’t take all this death stuff while I’m grieving.

So, Steven reluctantly goes along with the rest of the DeChromer team to the sheriff’s office, and are wise enough to arm themselves before walking into the inevitable elaborate ambush that Chrome Skull has set up. (Chrome Skull really seems to have taken his game plan from Cobra Commander.)
They escape the ambush with Princess sustaining a flesh wound on the arm. They make their way to the Jones Funeral Home where Chrome Skull screws with Steven’s mind by carting around the nerd’s dead mother and using it to spook him. Tucker goes off to coordinate with his brother in law, but comes back without seeing the increased carnage. Meanwhile Princess begins to take charge of the situation and really comes into her own as she decides to take the fight to Chrome Skull and make him pay. Now it’s a serious matter of revenge as Chrome Skull is back and turns out to be using the coffin workshop as a storage unit for his victims. When Princess sees a live one (The Bound Girl) tied to a headless victim in a coffin she attempts one of the most ineffectual rescues of all time. When Princess fails to get the rope untied before Chrome Skull comes back she’s left with an ethical dilemma? Stay and die with the girl or run away and find something to fight with. She chooses to live and then has to face the gruesome sight of Chrome Skull brutally (and I mean brutally) decapitating the Bound Girl and showing off the head to her. Again, this is the sort of extreme misogynistic violence that we can expect in most horror films, but then Chrome Skull is an extreme misogynist killer. Princess meanwhile is captured, but lucky for her Tucker shoots Chrome Skull and the DeChromers once again get away.

Chrome Skull, though, according to the FBI profile, is an affluent white male who may be a professional and his skill in doing surgery on himself to remove Tucker’s bullet proves the point. The plot gets thicker as Princess watches some of the tape in Chrome Skull’s camera and realizes that the Mr. Jones the funeral director was in league with Chrome Skull the whole time, but when the camera batteries die she’s left not knowing the rest of the story, so she takes Chrome Skull’s car and uses the GPS to take her toward the nearest convenience store. But Chrome Skull can access that info remotely (ah, technology, the modern serial killer’s friend) and gives chase in a really tacky hearse. That leaves Tucker and Steven trying to catch up to Princess before Chrome Skull does. The pacing of the story is really good here as it develops into a multi-party chase sequence with the addition of a pair of young white dudes in a car heading toward the same store while listening to “Sexy Bitches Are My Favorite Kind of Bitches” which you can really appreciate because un-sexy bitches are really not anybody’s favorite kind of bitches. If I was going to like “bitches” I’d probably like the sexy kind too. On the other hand Sexy Roast Beef Sandwiches are not my favorite kind of sandwiches. (Sexy pancakes, though are my favorite kind of pancakes.)

Chrome Skull catches up to Princess and puts the knife to her throat but before he can kill her his camera runs out of tape. (Ah, technology, the modern serial killer’s nemesis.) So, if you can believe this, Chrome Skull sends her into the store to buy more tape. Really, Chrome Skull? What kind of idiot would actually do that? Oh, sure Chromy, do you want a six pack of Shiner and some Slim Jims too? You know, for when you’re done killing me?

The store becomes the Alamo where the last stand takes place. The poor schmuck working behind the counter goes outside to stop Chrome Skull but ends up blowing his own head off with a shotgun. One of the two guys (Anthony) gets his head cut off and placed in a refrigerator (which nobody notices--are these people all just unobservant?) but Steven comes up with the stratagem of grabbing Chrome Skull’s briefcase where he notices the container of adhesive (it isn’t just magic holding that mask to his face, after all) and replaces it with an extreme super-glue that will be impossible to get off. Unfortunately he doesn’t live to see his brilliant plan take effect because he’s killed with a can of tire sealant that is injected through his ear. Chrome Skull even tries to dishearten Princess by showing her the tape of herself as an escort in Miami but while he’s gloating he reapplies the now tainted adhesive and then just about kills himself trying to get the mask off his face. In the end, he manages to get his face off his head and then Princess takes an aluminum baseball bat and finishes the job. As gruesome violence goes, this is of the gratifying variety--given what Chrome Skull has done for most of the film he’s got all that coming and then some. There’s a brief touching moment as Tucker dies and Princess gets in the car with Tommy and they drive away toward Atlanta, with Princess having symbolically laid her past life to rest (that’s right there’s more to the title than just the dead people in the funeral home) along with Chrome Skull and his victims.

This may be the only film I’ve seen where the city of Atlanta holds the shining promise of a new life, thus making Laid to Rest the dawn of Atlanta Pastorals.

The music includes performances by Deadbox, a band that includes director Robert Hall and Thomas Dekker who also performed “Sexy Bitches.”

So, what to make of Laid to Rest? I think in the end it’s a horror film with a decent message and which doesn’t actually celebrate the violence that it shows, but uses it as a key plot element. Chrome Skull is an evil bastard (an evil RICH bastard, no less, so there’s a level of class warfare going on) who does violent deeds and is met with an equally violent end. For the squeamish or those who would refrain from seeing any kind of violence, obviously none of the mitigating factors will allow for a differentiation between this and true torture porn. But there is a difference here and I have to give credit to Hall for trying something different even while doing a classic man with a mask killing girls with a knife slasher. The worldview underneath this film is neither traditional morality nor torture porn anarchism, but a kind of redemptive ethics that gives someone a chance to start fresh--especially if they’ve had their past beaten out of their skull with convenient amnesia. Also, it does raise the important question of what kind of bitches are your favorite kind of bitches.

Bonus Features
1. Commentary with Writer/Director Robert Hall and Actor/Producer Bobbi Sue Luther
Lots of good stories about the homegrown nature of this project that was done during the WGA strike and which was possible through some serious volunteer and low-paid work. Apparently Lena Headey wanted to do the film only if she could die a real horrible death and wear an eye-patch, but sadly they didn’t let her wear an eye-patch.
Also, the commentary reveals the origin of “Sexy Bitches Are My Favorite Kind of Bitches” and that the director wanted to show the difficulties in decapitation to make up for what he perceives as the ease of decapitation in other horror films. In other words, he wanted to make a film that didn’t make people think that neck bones have the consistency of margarine.
2. Postmortem: The Making of Laid To Rest
What is the most simple premise that I think I can do a compelling story with and a good job dramatically and thematically and I thought “Guy in a mask chasing girl” that usually works. -- Robert Hall
I like just how much fun this group is having making this film. It’s always reassuring to see how the gore was made and that people seemed (as far as we can tell) to be having fun. And it’s something filmed in Maryland that isn’t The Wire.
3. Torture Porn: The SFX of Laid To Rest
Admittedly I think gore is a huge portion of a film like this. -- Robert Hall
Now, before you get excited about the use of the phrase “Torture Porn” I should note that the title is used here with a certain sense of hilaritas because the Makeup FX chief on the film is named Erik Porn. I can only imagine how uncool (or possibly cool) it would be to be named Porn. The effects are gruesome yet downright fascinating and seeing the various stages of construction required will either inspire you when you see the kind of work that is put into these effects or will depress you because you don’t see the value in the effort put into these effects.
4. Deleted Scenes
The first deleted scene is possibly one of the best deleted scenes ever. It’s Chrome Skull’s death scene reinterpreted with a new almost Shakespearean monologue.
There’s a scene in the funeral home where Princess remembers that she likes pizza but can’t remember what kind of pizza she likes.
There’s another bit in the funeral home that develops Steven’s character and his relationship with his mother.
Outside the barn Tucker and Steven try to come up with a plan on how to rescue Princess.
5. Bloopers
Horror films should always include a blooper reel. The bit where the coffin goes flying and Bobbi Sue comes rolling out of it is awesome. I got a real kick out of the full six minutes of this.
6. Trailer
Lesson learned from this trailer: If someone says “You’re safe here” then it’s a good bet that you’re not going to be safe there. And if someone says “Nobody’s going to die here tonight” then a lot of people are going to die tonight.
7. Trailers
1. Lightning Bug (2004)
A film loosely based on Robert Hall's life and his beginnings in doing horror movies and special effects. It's like a Tennessee Williams play with gore.
2. The Alphabet Killer (2008)
Eliza Dushku sees dead people and also Michael Ironside, Cary Elwes and Timothy Hutton. I won't spoil the ending for you here about who the Alphabet Killer is that way I'll still have some leverage to talk about it should I ever review this film.
3. Crowley (2008)
Simon Callow as a man who becomes Aleister Crowley in this strange looking little film.
4. Tokyo Zombie (2005)
I don't care if I never see this movie or if this movie isn't even real because this trailer alone is a piece of hilarious art. Tokyo Zombie is A#1!