Chrome Skull: Laid to Rest 2 (2011) – DVD Review

Feb 6, 2012
Hari Navarro

Chrome Skull: Laid to Rest 2 – Dir. Robert Hall - © Dry County Films

Workaholic special effects makeup artist, Robert Hall, again takes to the director's chair in this follow-up to his 2009 slasher, Laid to Rest.

This is not a film; it’s a long slow walk through the scattered debris of a massive, high impact, motorway pileup. The vehicle carrying the plot (there were sadly no survivors) must have borne the full force of this tangled wreck, as there is precious little here that even comes close to an engaging narrative framework.

Newcomers to the Chrome Skull universe need not worry though, for by virtue of this thinness of story there really is no effort required in getting up to speed on the sordid goings on at Torture Porn Inc. But for those who do struggle, flash-backs are copiously inserted; just the tonic to dilute the obvious and pad out the aforementioned total lack of structure and purpose. So, in a sentence, a heads up; Chrome Skull is a psychotic mask wearing, video camera shouldered, knife welding, deviant kidnapper and killer who, seemingly, doesn’t know how to die.

Extreme Gore and Danielle Harris Set Horror Hearts a Racing

We enter the frame at the very moment that the first in this wannabe franchise, Laid to Rest (2009), faded to black. Tommy (Thomas Dekker), that’s right the guy from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and that re-brewed A Nightmare on Elm Street travesty, is speeding off into the horizon with ‘The Girl’ (Allison Kyler taking over here for Bobbi Sue Luther) traumatized and blood flecked at his side.

What we basically get from here on in is instant slasher, just add water (or gallons of fake blood as is here the case). You have your gratuitous breast(s) moment: Allison Kyler finally showering off those pesky blood stains. Then there’s the ‘isn’t that Brian Austin Green’ moment, in which the fantastic Mr. Fox actually surprises with an entirely watchable stint as Preston, sadistic scene chewing protégé to the man in the lovingly polished mask.

We get to see perennial horror it-girl Danielle Harris coyly massaging a bald head, there’s the current Mrs. Robert Hall, Angelina Armani, unrecognizable in a role far and away removed from those of her recent resume and, of course, we get the gore. Buckets and buckets of ridiculous, though wonderfully imagined and thoroughly abstract, gore.

Be warned, there is not one drop of subtlety at play here. This is extreme comic-book violence (read: implausible modes of death at the hands of improbably enormous weapons), don’t try looking for justification there is none to be had. This is unabashed accelerated gore deluxe, and it’s no holds barred, straight for the jugular, set-pieces will undoubtedly have the genres legions of splatter-hounds howling for more.

For the Want of a Plot…

Director Robert Hall, himself no stranger to special effects makeup artistry (his makeup design appearing in such films as The X Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Vacancy, Prom Night, Quarantine, The Crazies and Devil et al), is here ideally qualified to hold sway over the impressive melee of slice and dice action on show. Though he is far less at ease in the task of contracting all the films scattered elements into any sort of engaging storyline, it need not be Shakespeare, but even the most hardened of horrorphiles surely enjoys a good side order of story with their viscera sodden main.

Horror has long craved the dawning of a new and brutally inspired signature villain; the Myers/ Voorhees tag-team now noticeably tiring of dancing to that same old road worn beat. But, sadly, Chrome Skull doesn’t possess anything like their all-important effortless appeal. He is instead forced, manufactured, tailored to emit all the requisite doses of dread and bloodied suspense.

But lasting and iconic terror, the likes of which this film does gallantly aspire to, can never be evoked by simple paint-by-numbers film-making. The creation of fear is an art-form, and as such – gore effects notwithstanding – this is one negative creep that needs to invest more than a little extra time on getting his act properly together.