Butcher Block is a weekly series celebrating horror’s most extreme films and the minds behind them. Dedicated to graphic gore and splatter, each week will explore the dark, the disturbed, and the depraved in horror, and the blood and guts involved. For the films that use special effects of gore as an art form, and the fans that revel in the carnage, this series is for you.

Almost exactly 10 years ago, gore lovers found themselves a new horror icon in ChromeSkull. The masked killer made his debut in Laid to Rest, a brutal slasher that put major emphasis on putting creative kills back in the subgenre. Not bothering with traditional introductions, Laid to Rest picks up with one of ChromeSkull’s victims waking up in a casket with a traumatic head injury inducing both amnesia and major disorientation. She escapes, and spends the night fleeing for her life as ChromeSkull pursues to finish what he started. The body count racks up along the way and, being that this slasher is the brainchild of special effects artist Robert Hall, it gets pretty gnarly.

Hall has an extensive body of work in special makeup effects, from genre films like Dead Birds, Vacancy, Prom Night (2008), Quarantine, to beloved genre shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. It was the latter where he met actors Lena Headey and Thomas Dekker, who both found themselves terrorized by ChromeSkull in Laid to Rest. The silent yet menacing ChromeSkull was played by Nick Principe (Hatchet II). With Bobbi Sue Luther in the lead role as ChromeSkull’s intended victim, The Girl/Princess, the rest of the cast is filled out with genre notables Richard Lynch (2007’s Halloween, The Lords of Salem), Johnathon Schaech (Quarantine, Prom Night), Kevin Gage (Strangeland, Heat, The ‘Burbs), and Sean Whalen (The People Under the Stairs, Hatchet III). Most of which fall victim in very gruesome fashion. While Laid to Rest is intentionally simple in premise and isn’t interested in breaking the slasher mold, it is refreshing that The Girl consistently finds herself aligned and supported by characters who are genuinely nice people.

But, of course, who cares about the characters or story? We’re here for the gore. While Hall wrote and directed Laid to Rest, he handed the special makeup effects off to his crew from Almost Human Inc., with Erik Porn (Dead Night, No One Lives, The Crazies) serving as special makeup effects supervisor. Because Hall comes from an extensive background in special makeup effects, he had a strong grasp of how the effects should look, so Porn had extra pressure when coordinating the lifelike kills and gore for the film. Between the team’s impressive work and Hall’s vision for how the special effects should work and look, Laid to Rest has been praised for its stunning practical effects. That’s because Hall understands how to use CG to enhance the practical effects; it’s so seamlessly done that it’s often been assumed this slasher is entirely practical.

Lena Headey’s character is one of the film’s earliest deaths; ChromeSkull skewers her head to the wall while she’s dangling upside-down out of a window. It’s made even more brutal by ChromeSkull’s twisting and wrestling the large blade out of her skull, the skin stretching and tearing as blood gushes from just about every orifice in her head. Headey’s face was digitally composited over the puppet and practical effects. Hall had designed this kill sequence to be equal parts practical and digital from the get-go. Yet it looks entirely real and wholly practical. The visual effects crew from Asylum VFX and Almost Human Digital deserve just as much praise as the practical team- all involved delivered visceral gore that looked incredibly realistic.

It’s easy to see why this series has developed a vocal following, and have long been clamoring for the third entry. It’s an unrelenting slasher full of glorious kills that will make gore-hounds happy. Exploding heads, severed heads, a disembowelment, and literal face melting, but all through the laser precision of someone well versed in delivering stunning special makeup effects.