Thirty-One

Wow

31 opens with a quote from Kafka. Pretentious, moi? Then some dude wearing white face paint tries to bore another bloke to death by talking a load of old claptrap to him; when that doesn't work, he whacks him with an axe instead. It later transpires that the axe-happy chappie with the bad attitude and teeth to match is Doomhead, one of a group of psychos paid to hunt and kill unwilling participants in an annual game organised by some twisted geriatrics in powdered wigs. In the latest game of 31, a group of carnival folk fight for their lives against a variety of foes, including a Nazi midget, a tall bloke in suspenders and a tutu, and a pair of chainsaw wielding loonies. Having suffered through both of Rob Zombie's Halloween movies, I approached 31 with trepidation, longing for a return to form for the director who gave us the fun House of 1000 Corpses and the excellent The Devil's Rejects, but expecting the worse. Sadly, Zombie met my expectations: a wafer thin plot that lacks originality (check out Maurice Deveraux's $lasher$ for a much better take on the deadly game-show theme), horrible characters (the protagonists are so scuzzy I actually wanted them to die), trite grind-house affectations, and repetitive, uninspired action made this one a real chore to watch. C'mon Zombie, I know you can do better than this lazy, predictable tosh.

Yeah, it's one of those movies for fans of Rob Zombie movies. It's funny, because if you are a fan of White Zombie and Rob Zombie, you'd expect his movie career to more reflect Frankensten and Wolf-Man, but his movies seem to take on more on a slasher monster vibe. Zombie has a love of trashy and violent 1970s movies. Those low end ones like I Spit on Your Grave and Ten Thousand Maniacs. What's good about Zombie is that he's able to take homage without copying what they are doing. It's most likely why the film takes place in 1976. A group of carnie folks are kidnapped by some elite society that put them in a game of survival. It's a bizarre film with an ensemble of interesting characters, especially the clowns that are tracking down these five victims Hunger Games style. The one clown called Tube-Head was far better than Jered Leto's Joker in suicide Squad. So I must admit, I hate to say it's not for everyone, but it definitely is not. It more follows the the lowest of the low Grind house cinema and if you like that stuff than it's for you cinemagardens.com

Let me start off my review by saying that I do not care for the work of Rob Zombie. As a musician, I avoided his contributions, and as a film maker, I am apathetic, at best. I enjoyed Halloween, and the Devils' Rejects wasn't awful. That being said, I just have nothing positive to say about his latest endeavor. This movie, 31, has finally cemented Zombie as a hack with too much creative freedom and not enough creativity. Just like Uwe Boll, Tyler Perry and Eli Roth, all hacks in their own right, Zombie exceeds them by not having anything commercially or critically successful, as his movies are divisive at best and abhorrent at worst. The worst part of it all is that with some truly talented people, his films would actually turn out somewhat enjoyable. But this man just seems hellbent on being the worst director that horror has to offer, unleashing each subsequent soiled diaper onto the world without a care for adding anything of value to the genre. The premise is solid, and could have made for an original and enjoyable film, but with acting like Sherry Moon's, how can you take any of it seriously? Everyone was just awful in this film, down to the extra's, and this movie does not deserve to be seen by anyone. This is quite literally the worst film I have seen in the past decade. A complete and utter waste of time in every sense of the word. Utterly and completely insulting.

Saw this on a pirated DVD for 50 rupees. Rob Zombie's The House of 1,000 corpses was good and The Devil's Reject's was better. I was disappointed by the Halloween remakes. Yet to see Lords of Salem. I was hoping that 31 might be his best. I was totally wrong. This is a very boring, unoriginal movie. There is no character development, you really don't care who kills who or why. The worst was the editing n camera shots. The quick-cut, shaky-cam gave me a headache. I almost fell asleep. Couldn't make out what was going on. The movie had excessively annoying hand-held shots and bad editing. Most of the scenes were shot in dark. One cannot make out the place or the set up. There was zero tension. Zero suspense. It was simply not scary at all. Zombie's wife, Sheri cannot act. I mean she can't even cry or scream properly. The story was lame. There was no proper explanation given. The ending tried to be more ambiguous but failed.

I will start this review off by saying that I just finished watching this film for the one night early premiere for the Fathom Events showing. I also have seen all of Rob Zombies movies except "The Lords of Salem" which I intend to watch and I love all of his films. The story is very simple it is about five carnival workers who are kidnapped the night before Halloween in 1976 and they are then forced to survive 12 hours in "Murderworld" and that is the story. The acting was well cast. I didn't know the people who got kidnapped but they played their parts extremely well. The people who played the sociopath clowns were excellent. The costumes were on point and also made you chuckle which I believe was the desired effect. The star of this film though was Doom-Head who was played by Richard Brake. He honestly deserves an award for his performance which was immaculate. The action was dope. I mean the kills and the maiming were Incredible. I personally can't wait for the NC-17 version to release like Rob Zombie said it would because that will be even more Intense. The cinematography was impeccable in my opinion. The camera angels were all shot to induce a sense of dread and claustrophobia. I personally never got scared but that is because I'm a horror fiend. The location was a perfect choice even though it was shot in what appeared to be a warehouse but the team made it work. I will close with this and that is that this is a Must-Watch film. I plan to buy it Day One when it releases. The whole movie never felt rushed which is a major downfall especially in the horror/gore movies of today. The ending was realistic and not cheesy in my opinion. I personally feel anyone who loves a good manhunt movie will fall in love with this film as I did and thanks.

I had no anticipation or information about this movie going in... except for it being a Rob Zombie movie and my enjoyment of all his other movies so far. None of them are perfect but none of them are boring, all of them bring something interesting to the table. Not so much with 31 though... One thing I've generally liked with Zombie's movies is that, unlike a lot of horror films such as Hostel - which promise all sorts of transgressive horrors only to bait and switch with some relatively tame eyeball gouging, Zombie's movies generally follow through on their threats. I never feel safe in his movies (except I'm pretty sure Mrs. Zombie's characters will survive to the final frame). Unfortunately, 31 let all the air out of that balloon dog for me. It didn't ever come close to crossing any lines of standardized horror. Oh sure, Its clown's show up and promise all sorts of vile entertainments... but they never materialize. Instead, we get some badly filmed fight scenes and routine kills that could be out of any war/crime/fantasy film. There's little or no suspense, barely any atmosphere outside of the clowns' initial entrances and Malcolm McDowall's nonsensical prattling. The movie takes its time building up 'Doomhead' but what is he but another loudmouthed guy in a clown suit? I assume he'd go down just as easily to a well-aimed blow to the head. There's really nothing special about him except for the amount of time he gets on screen. He even does the loathsome 'golf clap' routine that should be forever banished to Cliché-land. When the clowns do get their hands on someone they're not likely do do anything surprising at all... just stab them and move on. Unless something nastier was edited out of the version I saw... which I kinda doubt. The carnies themselves had the potential for being the sort of interesting protagonists I'd pull for... and I DID like that they weren't just a bunch of squealing teenagers (Meg Foster especially was fascinating to look at. Older women like her are so seldom allowed on screen in heroic roles). But they're mostly reduced to just goofing around and swearing at each other... maybe it was just bad improv because the writer couldn't think of what to do with them? This is BY FAR the least interesting thing I've seen come from Mr. Zombie. I'm still a fan of his previous films, I'll still watch whatever he makes next... but this one is the bottom dweller. Not that it's such a bad generic horror movie, as just that alone it's fairly average... but it's certainly a bad Rob Zombie horror movie. And being that, it's pretty disappointing.

I enjoyed Zombie's first two movies. That's about the extent that I can say I am a fan of his in any respect. With that being said, some of the imagery that I had seen leading up to this film had me hoping it would exceed the awful messes that were the Halloween remakes and Lords of Salem. It didn't. Carnies, the 70's, killer "clowns", and a game that is an amalgamation of better movies (The Running Man, etc). It's not an overly complicated plot, but somehow Rob Zombie was able to make it seem confusing. Bad acting (particularly from Sheri Moon Zombie, as always), terrible dialogue, and lots of characters with basically no character development. I've read lots of other people say that this is a pointless movie and they are absolutely right. It's watchable, but it's not something I would watch again. My general thinking at this time is that Rob Zombie is far better suited to be a production artist/set designer than a writer/director.

It was bad. This movie was the worst Rob Zombie film yet. No plot, no characterization, disappointing lackluster ending. And nothing we haven't seen before that's been done a thousand times better in other films. It felt like they went dumpster diving in the trash pile of most of Zombie's films and took whatever edited out bits were laying in the dumpster to string them together for this steaming turd. There is no character to root for, there is nothing but a bunch of aging actors trying to survive this film against other aging actors. In fact, the scariest part of the film is how badly certain actors have aged. While I agree that Richard Brake's performance of Doom Head was very well done, even he could not save this film. There's just nothing here. A bunch of aging stoners get kidnapped by some rich psychos who force them to spend the night trying to survive against a group of sadistic freaks wearing clown makeup. Everyone gets killed in various ways with lots of blood, but nothing really felt like payoff. Every kill was so meh because we've seen it all before and there was no motivation or characterization to care about. Money was the sole motive. We're shown that it's just a high paying job to Doom Head. And the game was just about a money bet for the rich. But the characters/victims were so badly fleshed out that there was no reason to care who died. And there was no joy in watching a badly wrinkled up Meg Foster get brutally murdered. There was no suspense or anything. The ending was a very disappointing pile of nothing. They could have added anything to make it more interesting. Instead, it just sits there rotting in the sun. It's not good like Devil's Rejects, House of 1000 Corpses or even Halloween. This was bad from start to finish. Some people will like it for the kills, but it's a waste of time.

I really enjoyed this movie, despite the awesome atmosphere of the crowd which included most of the cast and the director himself, it was the film itself that had me on the edge of my seat. The opening monologue by the most evil, dangerous and deadliest clown of them all Doom-Head himself (but don't call him a clown) sets an extremely exciting pace to the film. James Gang's Walkaway was the opening credit's song that immediately told us that we were back in the 70's just like Rob Zombie prefers to set most of his films in and he made the right choice again. Setting the film in 1976 made our main characters that bit more interesting but it was the cast itself that made these characters really enjoyable to watch, so we meet our quirky carnies and learn a bit about their own little world. But before long the carnies are on their way to their next gig, driving through the desert on Halloween eventually being kidnapped in a way that's quite different from what you'd expect from a Zombie movie and find themselves in Murderworld. An enormous underground compound run by three old psychos in powder wigs who explain the rules of the game known as 31 where five people each year are set free in Murderworld each given a numbered bracelet, a weapon and must try to survive for 12 hours which once over are set free but so far there has never been a winner. The five carnies are untied as they enter the labyrinth with a weapon waiting for the first of the six clowns known as the heads to attack. Then what commences is none stop attacks, fights to the death, torture, bloody mayhem and the true hell that is Murderworld! I found this film quite thrilling you really don't know what's going to happen next like when we see who the toughest of the carnies really is and how all the heads are all very unique. Yes the brutality is extreme even for Rob Zombie but what really makes this film stand out is the originality of the story and how characters defy every expectation not one character slows down this film in fact it's the characters that drive this film and surprise an impress you constantly because they keep changing yet still keep their character true. The soundtrack worked very well to set the tone and setting for the film just like Zombie's masterpiece The Devil's Rejects. The ending couldn't have been better and all the actors brought their A game. The actors that really stole the show were Richard Blake who was indescribable as Doom-Head, Sheri Moon Zombie as Charly surprised everyone as being a full on action hero when she had to be, Meg Foster who was so deeply fascinating as Venus occasionally being a bad-ass and Jeff Daniel Phillips as the macho mechanic that cares about his group and will defend them with a crowbar! All in all Zombie has made this fan very happy when it hits theaters will make all his fans happy but I don't think critics will like it then again most of the greatest horror movies of all time were hated by critics initially so don't let that stop you from watching this flick!