Rating: **
Starring: Brian Austin Green, Thomas Dekker, Mimi Michaels
Riddle me this: should you get your face burned and torn away by an extremely strong glue, exposing your skull in the open, would you survive getting your now-skeletal face caved in with a metal bat, probably pulping a good part of your working brain in the process? Yeah, I don't think so, but apparently, so long as you have a shady underground organization working to cover your sorry murdering arse, you can have your noggin re-constructed into functioning properly again (...How?), guaranteeing you "shark jumping" abilities just so you can live another day to star in your own slasher franchise.
No idea what I'm talking about? Well, say hello to Chromeskull: Laid To Rest 2, the follow up to the 2009 direct-to-video slasher mini-hit, earning its place for its awesome gore effects and cool looking killer. With the first film satisfying the shallow side of my horror fandom, I will admit that I was one of the many who went giddy like shit after seeing the sequel's teaser but, oh God, how little I knew that it'll all be... "eh". The movie starts where Laid to Rest ended, with our chrome skull mask-wearing killer "Chromeskull" lying faceless, bludgeoned and bleeding to death in the middle of a convenience store. Just as the cops arrive to inspect the carnage, a group of paramedics swoops in to deal with the matter, but they're not with the boys in blue, oh no. They're with ole Chromey, made crystal clear after they shoot the responding officers dead and painstakingly help Chromeskull recover from his supposed demise. (...Again. How?)
Fast-forward three months later, Chromeskull is up and walking around (No, really. How?), ready to slaughter another innocent. This time, his project is a nearly blind girl named Jess who he abducts and stashes back in his hidden domain for a planned torture session. Unknown to him, the police investigating this kidnapping quickly picks up that this is related to the massacre that happened three months ago and they decided to bring back the only survivor of that slaughterfest for further help. This, however, is only one of the problems Chrome has to deal with as Preston, tired of feeling underappreciated for the dirty work he does for the organization, continues to overstep his boundaries as Chromeskull's handler and it is soon clear that he's not gonna play second bananas to the killer anymore.
Personally, I have no problem with world building in a slasher franchise since it gives all those involved with the project an opportunity to create a fresh, if not exciting universe around what could have been easily regarded as plotless exploitation. Sometimes, this world building can get a bit out of hand (Jason Voorhees going to Manhattan (sort of) and space (definitely). Freddy Krueger going Looney Tunes on his later murders. Chucky becoming a troubled father and husband. Michael Myers getting remade by Rob Zombie), but there are film franchises that try to workably evolve its universe in each movie entry, such as the likes of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and its follow-ups.
Chromeskull kinda falls in between; I wanted to like its twist that our killer is backed up by a well-paid organization dedicated to serial killing, but I really wish they did more with this concept than just make it the reason Chromeskull survived his (very) fatal injury, as well as just a mean to bring more characters into the franchise. Sure, we do see some parts of the organization doing their tasks such as supplying Chromeskull his victims and even making him his weapons, but I guess what I'm saying here is that what was shown felt more like footnotes than an actual article; it's bits and pieces of "what" works within the organization but never "how"? and "why?", which would have made some of its plotline, particularly Preston's whole dramatics of becoming the next "Chromeskull", more engaging and understandable to watch.But no. Chromeskull instead tries to mess around with multiple narratives from different character perspectives in a mush attempt to create some kind of coherent story, but it barely works since a lot of these characters are hit-or-miss; Preston, for one, just acts like a pouty sourpuss with a fixated murder urge and nothing more. Now, what if we took some time to find out why he wanted to earn Chromeskull's respect and approval in the first place? Perhaps that way, I would have cared more about this character, or at least get my attention long enough to see if he even will succeed in his goal. But nope, Preston's basically just this movie franchise's version of a disgruntled postman going postal and we're left with that.
Another dropped opportunity of a character would be Tommy, the other (well, only at this point) survivor from the first film who returns here to help the cops. Sort of. He is re-introduced here as a bitter young man still coping from the loss of his friend and under attack by one angry British roomie, only to be roped in aiding the cops with the lastest Chromeskull attacks. The film could have also tried focusing on him, maybe give him a storyline wherein he is forced to fight his demons (or demon. One chrome-face demon) after the kind of trauma he suffered but, alas, tis' was not meant to be and he mostly spends his time in the background, only to do some sort of heroism at the end which kinda felt empty.
It seems that the only thing Chromeskull has going for is gore and, just as the first film, the kills here are fantastically gruesome on their details. From disembowelment to heads messily sliced apart, the only thing that kinda improves the slayings is the unusual variations of Chromeskull's signature daggers, which apparently can come in a brass knuckle form and some weird "buzzsaw throwing star" abomination. It is interesting to note that the movie actually took a while to get into the real mean bodycount, a massacre in the last act as local police and detectives get sliced and diced left and right, with the first hour spent dragging us along a "plot" involving murder corporation power struggles (which wasn't really struggling much) and the kidnapping of a girl with a defect that is lazily and simply "there". This being said, the massacre in the end can be well worth the wait, but there is a good chance that it can also leave you feeling a bit uneven with the rest of the film and even more "shallow" seeing that it did try to do more than a simple slasher movie.
The movie ends with a scene that teases a possible 3rd entry, but with the way this sequel is handled, I can't say that I'm that excited. The first movie was good on its own, a dumb popcorn movie with gore deaths and a masked killer out for blood and that should have been enough. Chromeskull: Laid To Rest 2, as much as I find its attempts to flesh itself out commendable, didn't feel solid enough in its efforts to earn my approval, but this might just be me since I'm reading a couple of horror junkies out there actually liking this. Maybe I'm just a guy who appreciates simplicity, or maybe I'm an idiot. Eitherways, Chromeskull? You should have been Laid to Rest. Period.(Because, seriously. Bashed. Skull. Even if you survived, you're more likely be a vegetable after that.)
Bodycount:
1 male shot offcamera
1 male shot
1 female gutted with a dagger
1 female gets a thrown dagger through the temple, ear sliced off and bled to death
1 female sliced open with a dagger, stabbed in the mouth
1 female sliced with a customized "dagger star", shoved mouth first unto blades
2 females found rotting dead
1 male had his head sliced in half with daggers
1 male punched on the temple with customized "daggered knuckles"
1 male had his neck repeatedly sliced with daggers, decapitated
1 male stabbed on the back with a kitchen knife
1 male had his throat cut with a dagger
1 male shoved face-first to a hatchet
1 male pushed to meat hooks, neck cut with a machete
1 male gets jump leads attached to his ears and dunked to a tub, electrocuted and had his head bashed
1 female shot in the mouth
Total: 17
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