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Rating: C
31 Times I thought I should see another movie.
Rob Zombie’s31 is a new movie coming out on September 16th, the movie is about five carnival workers trapped in an abandoned factory. Playing a sadistic game in which case they have twelve hours to stay alive from their captors. It’s a cat and mouse kind of adventure with clowns.
Nitty Gritty, oh and course the Gore
In classic horror fashion, the film starts with showing you a person being killed by Doom-Head (Richard Brave). The worst of all the killers, just to go ahead and give you a feel of how intense it’s going to be. He is quite mad but honestly a pretty darn good actor. He really got me scared, he talked to the camera and you really felt the intensity. After this scene ends, you could pretty much end the movie because it's a bumpy ride from then on and out.
The film focuses on more than five carnival workers heading to another show in the Midwest backcountry. Only five characters even enter the abandoned factory to play the game so the other ones don't matter. I really wanted to like this movie because I have actually enjoyed a couple of Rob Zombie’s flicks, they really are a nice gorefest, but usually at least the characters aren't this stupid. The five carnival workers are honestly the strangest bunch of characters to ever come together. In the beginning, I really didn’t understand how these people met, I really wish I had known more about their backstories. You of course only have one lady who is worth a damn. That lady also just happens to be Sheri Moon Zombie, Zombie’s wife. The whole film you already know she is going to survive, because she is in every one of his movies, and it's always the same case. Now I will say she was a badass in the film but that doesn't stop from losing its edge because the camerawork made no sense.
Every time I felt like some crazy action was going to happen with the characters the camera would shake and edit real fast. I am not sure that anyone in the theater could really figure out what was going on. If the camera just didn't move at all, I would have actually seen what was happening and possibly felt more for the character's struggle. It almost seemed like two characters would enter the room, a killer would come at them, and then the shaky camera would happen and then someone would be dead. Only using context clues could I understand what really happened. That had to be my biggest gripe with the whole movie.
Now in typical Rob Zombie fashion it did feature a whole lot of gore, and of course, some random script lines. The characters are always so linear, just always one way, they never really learn anything by the end. Obviously, it's pretty hard to learn anything when you are dead but still. Maybe I am just being too nit picky with this flick.
As I was saying earlier the real standout was Richard Brave who played Doom-head, he was the defacto killer of all the killers. The film featured a variety of killers going for blood but he was the ringer. He was the guy they called when you need someone dead. He played a very scary man. I honestly wish Malcolm Mcdowell (Clockwork Orange Fame) actually played a better part, he played one of the orchestrators of the horror show. Speaking of the people that put the death show on, they gave you no real idea of who they were and why they were even playing the game, the film just made no sense.
In the End, It doesn’t even matter.
In closing, I actually paid nothing to see this film because it was a pre-screener, but was it worth the 102 minutes of my life? I really didn’t think so. I think Rob Zombie just pushed the bar in the wrong direction this time. This movie could have just been so much better if they would have just stuck to more traditional methods of directing, no shaky camera, and just a tad more fluff in the story. I can say it did surely satisfy the gore section which helps it. I will have to give this a solid C. So see it if just don't care.
Rob Zombie's 31