90-Min Family Video - Laid to Rest: Sloppy in a Good Way

A masked killer(s) maybe the lamest premise for a horror film. If not the lamest, that the simplest and most over done. But, as long as the violence is over the top, the feature has potential. No matter how crappy the editing, a film like "Laid to Rest" has potential.

 

 

A girl wakes up in a coffin at a Deep Southern funeral home. She is able to escape this portable tomb, but murder after vicious murder follows her. All of these killings are executed by a knife-wielding psycho sporting a chrome mask of a skull and a GoPro camera. Where is a amnesiac to hide in a town with no phones, only a few houses, and a convenience store?

Story wise "Laid to Rest" offers nothing new to the direct-to-DVD horror market, but it is so over the top that is easy to enjoy.

The gore is stepped up to a realism only reserved for war movies (or Italian horror). What puts it over the top is that it revels in its tackiness. Sawing off heads with a knife, using tire sealant to kill. Events like those make one wonder if MacGuyver is the guy under the mask.

Obviously, this film cannot be taken seriously for a second. It does hurt the story since we are never given any clues to the killers motives. There is no force of nature trying to balance the world like vibe that a Hannibal Lector or Anton Chigurh possess. He just kills and we are not supposed to ponder why. With that flaw, the ridiculousness of the feature means it can really only be considered comedic. This makes "Laid to Rest" A good B-move, but perhaps a lousy horror flick. Especially when it tries to shock you with the narrative.

Luckily, the film has enough sense to embrace the "unintentional" humor. You may not feel much for the characters, but you will enjoy guessing what their tongue-in-cheek demise will be.

"Laid to Rest" is a DVD whose box art is too intense for its nature. It should not be presented as the next horror franchise, but as a gornographic laugh fest that is in on the joke. If that was the intention, this feature is close to being deemed a classic. If not, then welcome to the made for "Mystery Science Theater Three Thousand" aisle that every video retailer should establish.

 

@bquack_1 - Pinterest

 

From Sorry Sods to True Douches, Part 2

Back to the Sods v. Truckers

I already have Fireworks, multiple Dreamweaver windows, and Firefox open. Can you blame me for not wanting to open Word for proofreading?

I cannot say it has been a crazy couple of weeks, and that could be my problem. Okay, that is definitely my problem. I am broke. I do not have anyone I can relate to in the Peoria area (not to say anyone can), and no way to meet new people. I can affirm that after my accidental credit slip up on Zoosk.

It feels like I am on a countdown to extinction. If I cannot make something work by the end of the year, it'll be two years of worthlessness, and even with all the drama I have experienced, I have never had two consecutive years of being fucked. I would say the dead-pun-line is 12/31 because I do not want to be one of those assholes who do the died at age 30, 1980-2011.

If anything that is reason enough to jail Michael Jackson's doctor. I would show leniency if he would have postponed the OD a couple of months, so that MJ would have been 51 (1948-2009). Maybe that's why the obsessive compulsive should not pass judgment.

Then again, that would make this website the ultimate hypocrisy. Suppose I better get to the blog then, and skip discussing the kitty suicide notes and the depressed chick hair cut I nearly gave myself. Do pawn shops take beard trimmers?

From Sorry Sods to True Douches, Part 2

I cannot say truckers have more sense than headless poets. From my experience, they have less. Unless the human torch of Tazewell's lungs were instantly filled with smoke and his wandering around the parking lot was a 120-second long involuntary twitch, I think Kurt Cobain maintains the title of the wiser.

I would like to say truck drivers have more common sense than the right wing daddy sods who bothered me on the "five hundred" block, but I had heard too many political speeches of how messed up the liberals had made things from those with CDLs. Sadly, these were not debates and I even heard the occasional "the Confederates were far more honorable and better than you yanks" rants.

This would be an easy transition to tell my Facebook friends how voting for Republicans is immoral, but I still want to rip on our title's sods. Perhaps truck drivers do not have a greater amount of sense than these not quite Ivy League turds (who were Cardinals fans to boot), but they may possess more common courtesy. I have heard that Tejano truckers are a ball to booze with and I am fairly certain they do not talk politics or religion. Of course, with all the Virgin Mary stamps on their skin, you should know what faith not to piss on.

That's what the T-shirt I wear was, a statement. You may not get the message, but you understand the words "Destroy Popular Culture." My fault was my willingness to explain the shirt to a couple of closet cases.

Another reason why you do not talk to patrons of the same gender at a strip club. Am I suppose to think that a guy is straight if you want to talk to me about politics instead of Polly's tits?

Schrodinger's Cat: Rationalizations of an Existentialist (Part 2: Sub-Subtext Device)

I was bashing my head against my desk at the day job (don't worry, the manager whose office was across from my cubicle took the day off) trying to come up with an opening to the meat of this two part blog. The best I could come up with was an attempt to attach the irony (at least in an Alanis Morrissete sense) of not having the cellular data to use Spotify for some ironic industrial rock (namely Angelspit's "Cubicle") to something, anything that seemed to be a sensible transition from the abandonment discussed previously.

Some how this blog feels like a victory learning that all I needed was to come up with the sub-sub (sub-sub-sub-sub...sub-subtext device) title to inspire the direction. Originally it was going to be called "If I'm the Cat." Despite the cuteness in the my intended blog title, I'm sure that we can get back to a lighthearted attempt at my emotionally dire strait.

Oh for some money for nothing and chicks to redistribute it to. Some one has to make some money from the whimsical concept of a rock n' roll lifestyle or more people will need to be liquidated beyond those who have reality shows on E! and TLC.

I am not coming up with any other music references, so my Penn Jillette homage has lost its fuel, along with my optimism.

Or has it, I seem to be looking on the bright side of every misstep in this writing. Too bad it is going to result in a horrid blog and "Cat: Part 3." There we are, back to my dissatisfaction.

Rationalization 3: Creativity is not intelligence.

I've been dreading this blog because of the writing process. Damn my web design background and its lessons in content length (a web page should not be more that two "page downs"). I should have completed my whining instead of celebrating the proper use of HTML. Then I could move on from telling you about how I cannot move on and write my countdown to extinction this week.

Maybe I should have decided to just play on my assumed intelligence. I say assumed because any one who knows about my first semester of my sophomore year(s) knows I have difficulty with "If/Then" suggestions (and i=-1), so my Physics Feline Philosophy being further alluded to in the title of this blog should signify the possibility of absolute nonsense. But IF you really wanted a car wreck, my assumed intelligence was going to create a new blog dedicated to applying a standing system for Major League Baseball inspired by the table system of the Barclay's Premier League. That would be high school all over again. Excluded from the Tri-Lambda's clique for not being as smart as them, but liking (and probably being further appreciative of) the same things. This time it would be the Sabermetricians.

It wouldn't necessarily be a vain concept, I could use the depressing (because the Cubs are rebuilding) blog to promote what this blog is dedicated to, "Main Event of the Dead. (if you want a treatment of my Pro-Wrestling Zombie Comedy B-movie, email me at russthebus07@gmail.com)" Of course, there is no promotional material because I'm the only one working on this film.

Rationalization 4: Only good promotion brings meaning.

I say this because if "Main Event of the Dead" has no meaning because no one is helping me figure out how to sell it. Sadly, I'm not a female poet or a Swedish reporter, so my death is not going to sell my screenplay. And to their credit, they had completed works while I have completed only a singular work. If the person who raided Steig Larsson PC found drafts, then why is Steig's name on the "Millenium Trilogy (The Girl with the, The Girl Who Played, The Girl Who Kicked)?" I'm just saying, the partner of Steig who received nothing in inheritance could have avoided Sweden's laws by putting her name on the manuscripts.

Fortunately, creativity at least has meaning, even if it is only for the creator. This is actually my conclusion on why there could be a god, too bad people bastardized it by building religions to explain something that "has been widely considered a bad move."

People search for their own meaning to something they did not create. People do so to receive something out of it. Every investment is because of that, the general idea of receiving something to feel good for it, but if do not think about what the creator gets out of it, then you are missing the point, like RELIGION.

Do I go into how "Duck Dynasty" made an atheist out of me? It doesn't seem timely...but I may have to save that for my sharing with assholish Facebook posting (MAY, as this blog explains, I don't like scheduling my releases).

All I can offer is that you can help me finally do something with my creativity, maybe make a living out of it, I'll settle on just getting an in into an industry that people can blame for my suicide instead of themselves. That isn't much of an offer, and has led me to a dark realization that may make you reconsider.

Rationalization 5: Suicide is the only way to dispense justice.

Let me just say, if someone offs themselves, unless they leave hints that you are why they committed the act, you aren't to blame. And even if they leave hints, they're probably just vengeful, so it's not your fault, but can you blame them? They get a chance to end their life with a sense of justice. Justice they deem fit, like justice should be. Justice is for making the victim feel like everything is right, not the victim's family and friends. Friends and family want to see someone suffer, only the victims knows if they should.

Too bad I give a shit. An asshole couldn't resist the suspense of, "will you need to answer for my choice?" If I chose (it's not a slam dunk) to end my life, I know it was because I don't have the worth to justify breathing, not because of other people. You could say that if people cared enough that cannot happen, but if I don't have anything to offer, how can I have any worth?

I should get rid of the means to give vengeance from beyond the grave. Then again, there are a couple of people who deserve to know I don't think well of them. Only a couple, and some local wrestling promoters (they may want to beat me to purchasing skyprowrestling.com or spwrestling.com). Some messages seem worth immortalizing, like the samurai with seppuku and monks with gasoline.

Rationalization 6: Jesus was a poser because of that resurrection bullshit. Why would I want to be associated with that?

So, the sub-subtext device I intended to use has not been explained. I'm a slave to ideal web design. I guess I will get to continue this next week with "Part 3: If I'm the Cat."

Gambling, Vegen, spokes persons. One weird Super Bowl (42)

You hear the weirdest stuff when you work at a truck stop.

"Hope the Pats win. Not because I got a team in the game, my father-in-law has a bet. If the Pats win, he gets a hundred bucks. Lose, and he has to go into the super market dressed as a woman."

The guy walks away from the desk, and I turn and ask my coworker what kind of idiot takes that bet.
"If it's a small town, being dressed as a woman would probably be embarrassing." Pause for a second, a gentleman (I say that because my coworker claimed he was trying to solicit the help) walked to up to the desk with an Arby's sack. I'm sure you've all seen it, unless you are one of those spineless vegans.

Look, it ain't livin' unless something has suffered for your nourishment. I say nourishment, not decadence. No breathing entity should die in the name of gluttony. Pride is mine to claim because nothing suffered for my Caramel Apple Empinadas.

Be sympathetic to the cows? Come on. All female mammals who have given birth inevitably get sore nipples.

Great. Now I can't help myself. I must get on the equality soap box.

Dare I claim (dare, dare), to understand women because I have my nipples pierced? It's the closest any guy can get to the pain of lactating (next to doing a lot of steroids and having testicular cancer, see "Fight Club"). Embrace the nipple and tame the vegan. Now with that said, let us return to the idiocy of the person who took that bet.

$100 versus a drag show. The sad thing is the guy won't be paid to be a transvestite. That's the only tear I'd be willing to shed for him. He will not get said tear though because I just now remember that I meant to finish my sub-rant about a paper, fast food bag.

Okay. The sack had a stereotypical pretty, "I have sucked to get on this bag to make up for the death of my ambition and lack of super model beauty" face. On the sack, by the arianesque face was "I heart pepper bacon." That just pissed me off.

She doesn't love the bacon. You could see that because she only had one chin. She probably feels guilty when she eats that meat. The bag should say, "I bang pepper bacon every now and then, and occasionally it throws me cab fare before it kicks my ass out of bed."

If that ain't the definition of good looking girls nailing fat guys, what is? Perhaps if it was sausage.

Now that we've embraced the bacon and tamed the cunt, let us try to put some closure on the stupid gambler.

The father-in-law is a con man if he was comfortable with his sexuality. Dressing as a woman is not embarrassing, if you make the effort.

All you have to do is look like an ugly woman, and not a guy in a dress with sloppy lipstick. Watch Trainspotting as an example (who knows it may have been wonderful). The point is if you look like a woman, why would they suspect you?

If you are going to gamble, it's gotta be for currency. MAYBE WITH SOME FEEDBACK, like that sentence fragment screams for, we can come up with legitimate things to measure against cash.
Since I wrote the draft on paper, my ideas will have to wait for another blog. Damn, I'm a long-winded fuck up.

April 2007: The Hottest Blog Ever or an Insensitive Eulogy

Current mood: guilty (I miss Myspace details)

My apologies for the tacky bulletin, but I just gotta get some feedback about my attempt to make light of the man who burned himself to death despite my efforts to extiguish him at my gas station.

As the members of Monty Python sang, "Always look on the bright side of death." I won't continue the lyrics. It seems redundant.

Sorry to dissolve any of you who felt a sense of relief, but obviously the insanity of Russ Staley wasn't resolved through partial hospitalization.

I gotta get out of this funk, so I that I can get back to wrestling. Imagine the angst I was in when I went to Hobby Lobby. The telling myself that I couldn't buy anything shiny to accessorize my alter ego.

I feel worse than Nicholson about the "All work and no play." It's like that but add "No beer and no TV make Homer go something something."

On the topic of going crazy, there aren't many jokes that can be made about a guy on fire. Trying to come up with an insightful, comedic blog is as difficult as finding a satisfying end to a trilogy (Revenge of the Sith excluded).

When wholesome, anti-violence, no vulgarity Mom said she had more fun watching Hot Fuzz than Shrek the Third, I think you know where I'm coming from.

And come on. Topher Grace as Venom? And if there is no wine for Thomas Haden Church, I'd rather save my dough for Merlot from a box.

My therapist accused me of ADD, but blame Family Guy. We allow Seth MacFarlane to jump in and out of stories. But, allow me to get this giant chicken off my back and get back to the story at hand.

Gas can: $5.99
Enough 87 octane to get the job done: $1.55
A memorable exit and a headline: Priceless

There is a bit of irony to this. I immediately wanted to take smoking back up. Lord knows I wasn't going to ask for a pack afterwards. That's just tacky. It does make me realize one thing. Cigarettes aren't just for post intercourse any more.

If someone would have screwed the corpse, then everything that occurred in Clerks would have happened to me at this truck stop. Life imitating art.

My God! My god has a sick sense of humor. Speaking of my god (see, I can a make a reasonable transition), it's not like I haven't heard the divinity of the situation.

Mom said God has had everything bad that could happen to me happen to me, so there is nothing left for me to do but get my life together. Nothing bad can happen to me, so I should get on with my unfulfilling life and give up this pursuit of happiness because God has given me a life to live and that I should just live.

Let's see. What bad thing have happened to me since September 7, 2004?

My best friend / the first girl I fell in love with died
and was not given a memorial.
I spent two and a half days in Peoria County Jail for
nothing...ok...maybe stupidity.
My grandma / closest family member dies.
Bankrupt because of a Carrie Clifton's $200 a day
habit.
Wasted a year trying to save said junky cunt.
I've obtained enough speeding tickets to warrant a
suspension (finger crossed for the best).
An inability to wrestle.
The knowledge that I lack something that prevents me from
obtaining a fulfilling job or relationship.
I sold the utensils used in the suicide of a man that I busted my ass
to save and comfort during his dying moments.

Face it. You gotta be pretty creative to top the last one. Watching someone die in a gruesome way is hard enough, but the mind fuck is that I did all I could physically and mentally do to hope the nutcase to life.

If you want to knit pick; not grabbing the closest extinguisher, and not knowing if I should use my C+ life savings skills from 8th grade health class, so maybe there were a few more things I could have done. Oh, now I'm getting mind fucked in the ass.

My mom has watched two people die, both of them at ripe ages and terminal. The only way I know for her to help them would be the Saw 3 treatment, and again, how tacky would that be.

A mind fuck as a sign from God. The tough times are over. Okay? Well, Moses probably gave a WTF about the burning bush, but this was a burning bipolar case. It just ain't the same.

Do I really want to worship a god that kills people for the good of others? I am not George W. Bush.

Enough ad nausem. A friend told me this was divine intervention because the lord had the guy cooked in front of my gas station. God didn't broil him. He broiled himself. God placed the psuedomonk to teach me the futility of suicide.

This message is having a difficult time sinking in since I feel like I'm hogging everyone else's oxygen.

I've gone through so much bad, but I have yet to find something fulfilling to do with my life. Throughout all this time, I watch people knowing fuck people over or not care enough about the ones closest to them.

My existential other told me that the are just delusions. Okay. Can I have a few? Is this alliterate haiku a convincing enough pitch:

de lu sions
di lute deep de
pres sion

You can say it's my lack of confidence, but I say bull shit. If you tell me to do something, I promise you my best and have always come through with my best. I am not going to act perfect to get attention. I'm going to be me.

If being cruel is the way to success, fuck that. I guess I'd rather be a social retard...no, I'd rather not trouble the world with my existence.

Thank Sartre and his bitch Christ for agnostic existentialism. If I die, I go to heaven or I just die. It's like playing two thirds of the roullete table. What's the worst that could happen?

For those saying, "Russ, at least your not crippled or impotent," I'll reply with "Crippled results in extra sympathy and premo parking. As for impotent...it's not like I'm using it on delusions."

If it got any worse, I would be allowed to be nonfactor.

If I'm not a factor, I should be dead.

With all this being said, maybe this was the wrong time to catch up on the Saw trilogy.

GAME OVER.

At least I took part in saving the right-winged town of Morton from a fiery fate. I guess I can accomplish something. But is allowing the a city of GOP zombies to stand a good thing?

Oh my sense of humor is twisted. I must get it from heavenly father.

www.dailymail.co.uk

9/3/09: 40 Years is Enough

Working at a gas station, you notice weird things. Kevin Smith, the second best screenwriter of the nineties, career was based on it. 

Working at a gas station in the Peoria area, the nation's test market (we get new stuff for three months, and have to wait 10 years for it's return) you see a lot of crappy products.

Today, Hershey's chocolate-flavored Bubble Yum.

I turn to my fellow associate to say, "This product won't sell. I hope they kill whoever came up with such a stupid idea in the name of natural selection."

After the disturbed chuckle of my coworker, I rethought my statement. It was not fair in terms of Darwinism.

"That guy shouldn't die. He should be commended for finding people dumb enough to fund it. The people who gave the product their approval should."

Makes me question which came first, the Nazis or Hitler? No Hitler, no World War through the efforts of dumb Germans. No dumb Germans, no Hitler. If that's not a shout out to my English pride, what is? I guess that's why the chicken or the egg is the universal, less offensive query. 

I for one feel that no one deserves to die, but the world is over populated. The herd needs to be thinned. Trying to stay humorous, I think back to Family Guy's episode where Brian tells his therapist about his Logan's Run dream. 

Cinema history lesson. Logan's Run is a sci-fi film from the seventies that earned a best special effects Oscar nomination for overly potent scribs (explosive charges used to simulate bullet marks).

The plot is that after our world is essentially destroyed (nukes, war, I came in late on this flick) the remaining population developed a dome society where robots do everything for people. To allow for this society to efficiently exist, when you turn 30 you are killed. Most people accept it, but of course, not everyone is so pro choice 363 trimesters in.

Logan, our main character who is on one of the execution squads that tracks down the runners, has turned 30, and has decided he's in the wrong.

My coworker asked "was this the flick with Robert Duvall?" No, Michael York is the star. THX1138 is Duvall's role from the even more confusing George Lucas film.

Thirty. Despite my state of mind right now, I think I may still need three more years if my hopeless ass can hang in there. But do I need thirteen? Hell, Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison, Cobain, 2 pac...they all did it in 27.

So I propose euthanasia at 40.

What is there for anyone to accomplish after 40?

Politics? Come on who wouldn't like to see Bush (W) euthanized?

Art? Stanley Kubrick even realized some projects are left to the younger directors. Like Jimmi Hendrix who achieved more just playing covers.

Technology? When did Bill Gates steal DOS and Windows? What good has he done since then?

Who needs technology if the risks are eliminated? What do you need to improve if the risks are eliminated? What do people under 40 have to fear a disease rise? Leukemia, testicular cancer, and cervical cancer...

AIDS? With the cocktail, you shouldn't die till after 40. It'd be wiped out.

40 years is the age where you start having the awkward procedures to increase the length of your life. 

What straight guy is not fearing a prostate exam? I've heard all the bitching my mom offers about the mammogram procedure.

So if life ends at 40, men don't get a finger up their ass. Women won't have to go through Botox to keep there men from going after younger tail.

Plus the biological clock issues. Are you telling me women look forward to menopause?

My little sister asked about child raising? She said, "You can't parent as long as you should." I told her, "Your major is childhood development, this would give you more work."

If you only have 40 years to live, you'd be a lot more productive with the knowledge that your life can be a waste.

You wanna be a teacher for a decade, no more keg stands. You wanna be a parent, get your kids fast and love every minute of it.

The most important thing about death at forty is it would weed out the weirdest people. Who on earth goes to med school to become a proctologist? Someone who has a fascination with assholes, or a person who couldn't succeed in any other medical field. 

Am I the right person for this rant? Perhaps. I feel burned out and hopeless. I can't do much more with my life. I fought my ass off to be this loser, and a lot of the time it seems like a waiting game.

Then again, I always want to be productive, and I work best with deadlines. 

Obviously, my argument isn't fair. My grandmother was full of knowledge that I try to use everyday. No one should deny my grandfather or father the time to give the love that they did/do. If you want to keep living, please earn it.

So I have developed a fair way of euthanasia. 

When you turn forty, you get a choice. All of the difficulties of the slide down the hill, or you get to choose your method of execution. I got this from Monty Python's Meaning of Life.

For example: a man is given a choice. A prostate exam or have intercourse with Scarlett Johansson (I'm actually a Keira Knightley fan myself), and she's on top. Your head will be laid across a guillotine, and she is holding the rope to the blade. When you cum, she drops the blade.

You cannot convince me that a quarter of our society won't take the nut and cut. Thus the herd is thinned out.

I think all of this is pretty clever. Maybe even intelligent. Then again, I'm not at a Big Ten school, I'm at a truck stop.

After working at about any kind of gas station, one gets fed up with the most ridiculous customers. Surely, this world could use less ridicule.

Maybe this is my work of genius. Einstein came up with the theory of relativity, and he worked as a patent officer. A clerk of his own kind. 

Then again, I'm may just be a closet prude. Either way, I'd love feed back.

Schrodinger's Cat: Rationalizations of an Existentialist (Part 2: Sub-Subtext Device)

I was bashing my head against my desk at the day job (don't worry, the manager whose office was across from my cubicle took the day off) trying to come up with an opening to the meat of this two part blog. The best I could come up with was an attempt to attach the irony (at least in an Alanis Morrissete sense) of not having the cellular data to use Spotify for some ironic industrial rock (namely Angelspit's "Cubicle") to something, anything that seemed to be a sensible transition from the abandonment discussed previously.

Some how this blog feels like a victory learning that all I needed was to come up with the sub-sub (sub-sub-sub-sub...sub-subtext device) title to inspire the direction. Originally it was going to be "If I'm the Cat." Despite the cuteness in the my intended blog title, I'm sure that we can get back to a lighthearted attempt at my emotionally dire strait.

Oh for some money for nothing and chicks to redistribute it to. Some one has to make some money from the whimsical concept of a rock n' roll lifestyle or more people will need to be liquidated beyond those who have reality shows on E! and TLC.

I am not coming up with any other music references, so my Penn Jillette homage has lost its fuel, along with my optimism.

Or has it, I seem to be looking on the bright side of every misstep in this writing. Too bad it is going to result in a horrid blog and "Cat: Part 3." There we are, back to my dissatisfaction.

Rationalization 3: Creativity is not intelligence.

Read the rest of this blog and other stories at Main Event of the Dead.com and determine if this thought process can be translated into a B-movie comedy about pro-wrestling zombies.