Review of Laid to Rest (Unrated Director's Cut)

Laid to Rest began with a lot of promise that the movie just never made good on. We begin with some highly stylized (probably over-stylized) editing that preps the audience with a frantic slide show of the macabre, until we settle in on a young, attractive, very alive woman inside a coffin. She has no idea how she arrived at such a horrible situation, only that her head hurts like the devil and that she can't seem to remember anything, including the names of some basic everyday objects, or even her own name or history. We the audience are lost in the dark too. Less than five minutes into the film and we already have our first mystery on our hands. The movie flows almost effortlessly thru the next 30 or 40 minutes, highlighted by a couple of VERY good and very graphic kill scenes that should please even the most discerning gore hounds. Equally impressive is the first batch of characters we meet, all of whom are likeable and developed around strong, believable performances. Unfortunately it is around here that the entire film derails. This most obvious problem lies in the killer himself. A good slasher film needs a good slasher and this movie simply fails. A good chase film needs suspense, and here the movie fails too. The characters just meander around from point A to point B then back to A, and so on while the dialogue gets worse, the characterization falters, and the killer becomes less and less scary. None of the mysteries within the movie are handled with any kind of skill, no satisfying information is learned about anyone and by the end there simply isn't much to care about. Only the biggest and most easily satisfied of slasher fans need bother with this one.