31 (2016)

I'm actually kinda torn on this one. On one hand, it's Rob Zombie's most shamelessly gore-charged, 'violent-music-video' style movie since his debut, "House of 1000 Corpses" - a flick I've always admittedly dug for that particular 'tone'. On the other, "31" appears to be his most phoned-in film to date. Zombie made it abundantly clear in an interview about this movie where he basically says that this was just a money-maker to help fund his next passion project. In all fairness, I can't say I care too much in the end, but compared to most of his other movies (good or bad...), his candid apathy DOES resonate on-screen with this one.

The set-up is that of your usual -  RV of people traveling the rural back roads (this time it's a group of carnies...) are ambushed by a gang of goons after finding some creepy scarecrows blocking the road. Half of the carnie crew is killed, the other half are kidnapped and whisked off to a factory where some "Eyes Wide Shut" creeps in powdered wigs force them to play "31". The annual Halloween-set 'game' involves placing their captives in a "Most Dangerous Game"-type of situation for 12-hours and forcing them to fight for their lives against a series of armed clown sadists while 'odds' are stacked on the likelihood of their survival...

That's essentially the movie. Very little time is put into character development or establishing any kind of 'build-up' or suspense. It's essentially just showing you the soon-to-be victims long enough to know you don't give a fuck about them and then clown carnage. Think "Battle Royal", just dumbed WAY down. Zombie simply rehashed that extremely familiar concept, hyped it to his fans to get crowd-funding and then just jammed in everything he has become known for during his film-making career: clowns, Sherri Moon Zombie, over-the-top redneckery, colorful/graffiti-covered sets and gore. And, I must concede, it's hard to totally hate something like this. Unless of course you hate everything Rob Zombie has done or dislike violent/'vulgar' films in general. Perhaps I'm being too 'nice', but picking apart a movie like "31" is redundant because it's just there to serve as mindless, wacky eye-candy of chainsaw-vag mutilation, Spanish Nazi-clown midgets, throat-slittings, skull-crushings, etc. It's a 'funhouse' flick of visual 'flash'. That said, my most major gripe with "31" would be that it could've gone a bit 'harder' with the gore. Based on the hype, I was expecting quite bit more 'graphic' shit outta this one. Also, that shaky-cam bullshit got in the way of some of the 'action', which was annoying. But in all... fuck it. I thought this flick was entertaining enough. I liked it a lot better than that bore-fest, "Lords of Salem".