Review of ChromeSkull: Laid to Rest 2 (2011) by Chris S — 18 Sep 2011

Horror movies, especially slashers, have always been a huge guilty pleasure for me. It probably has something to do with growing up with them and being terrified of the Jason Voorhees, the Michael Myers, and the Freddy Kreugers at a young age. Most of these horror movies were made during a time when horror was still scary. And sure, fifteen to twenty years later, these movies are more than a little cheesy and you laugh at the fact you were ever scared of them to begin with, but it's that nostalgic factor. Deep down you still have that feeling of terror, of respect, and of admiration. ChromeSkull: Laid to Rest 2 attempts to tap into that sense of nostalgia and mostly succeeds.

Laid to Rest 2 picks up immediately after the first movie ends at the gas station with ChromeSkull presumably dead while the cops arrive and the two lone survivors make their getaway, but things aren?t exactly as they seem. ChromeSkull works for an organization that is completely behind every sick and twisted fantasy he could ever even think of wanting to videotape. At the head of this organization is Preston (Brian Austin Green), a guy who takes his job a bit too seriously and initially wants to become ChromeSkull himself. As Preston tries to pick up ChromeSkull's remaining loose ends, a new victim named Jess (Mimi Michaels) presents herself. Meanwhile, Tommy (Thomas Dekker) is still trying to keep it together three months later. Paranoid and convinced he's being followed around every turn, Tommy is terrified when he's dragged back to the police department one day and informed that ChromeSkull is not only alive and well but has returned in the most gruesome way imaginable.

It was pretty crazy seeing Brian Austin Green; that guy that married Megan Fox and became famous for "Beverly Hills, 90210" in a horror movie? Expectations are probably low, but he's actually quite good in this. Preston is kind of overly demented. He is absolutely obsessed with not only his work, but ChromeSkull himself. The way he evolves throughout the film, his body language, and facial expressions are all pretty unnerving. Thomas Dekker is the other side of that coin and just as good. Tommy tends to use his terror and paranoia in any ways necessary to survive. He just wants to move on with his life and forget the ChromeSkull thing ever happened, but he keeps being pulled back in. The only character that didn't sit well with me was Jess. After watching the special features, it's obvious that Mimi Michaels was completely submerged in her character and her performance proves that. The way she was written on the other hand just isn't so great. The eye surgery thing, how she was going blind, and how she had a working cell phone on her the entire film was interesting, but everything else relating to the character felt incredibly cliché of every other female horror character in history; she screamed and cried at EVERYTHING and was somehow able to survive because of it.

The kills are stupendously nasty. They tend to last longer than most kills in other horror films and fake you out by cutting to black and then showing you everything anyway or making you think the kill has ended and then taking it a step further. There's a scene in the movie where Preston has his weapons guys build him this spring loaded star blade because he's incapable of spinning the blade on his own like ChromeSkull. This weapon is utilized in the most delightfully repulsive of ways and delivers the most memorable and horrendous death of the film.

Despite Laid to Rest 2 being a vast improvement over the original film, it still has its flaws and most of it probably lies within how it's written. At one point in the film, King (Owain Yeoman) tells Tommy that he doesn't have to worry. They have a lot of cops and a lot of guns. Yet up until that point only three cops are shown on screen and even later only three more are shown. ChromeSkull wiped out an entire police department on his own, but if each department only has six officers then that's a little less impressive. ChromeSkull's mirror scene is a must-see though. One of the only scenes you HAVE to see other than the kills. The way he lurks in the shadows is really fantastic, as well. A little homage to Halloween is never a bad thing. But the thing that doesn't add up is we see ChromeSkull come back into form; he puts his mask back on in the second half and he is reborn. We watch him slaughter a guy and three police officers while wounding two others and the last remaining girl. Yet somehow this clumsy, borderline-blind girl who's been stabbed through the back of the calf is the one who manages to one-up ChromeSkull? Maybe he underestimated her or didn't give her enough credit, but it still seems a little farfetched.

ChromeSkull: Laid to Rest 2 delivers everything the original film did and then some. The cast is better than expected, the writing has taken a step in the right direction, and the blood-soaked kills are grotesque enough to satisfy any die hard horror fan. With its drops of nudity and use of both digital and practical effects, Laid to Rest 2 contains all of the elements and framework of a cult classic yet lacks that nostalgic factor that most films like this yearn for. But as far as independent horror goes, ChromeSkull: Laid to Rest 2 is nearly as good as it gets.