31 [DVD]

31 is Rob Zombie's version of The Running Man, but way way more violent and Richard Brake as Doom Head steals the show as one scary man you don't want stalking you. The movie takes place on Halloween 1976. You get to meet "the Good guys" first and get to know them, then the Sh*t hits the fan and they're chained up ready to play 31. This is where the movie turns into a homage of The Running Man, only we don't have an Austrian muscleman in this movie. If you like gore, gore and more gore then this film is for you. Far better than The Lords Of Salem.

Well it's pretty much what you'd expect Rob zombie has exactly 1 trick and that is to make everything as grimy as possible. He's the directing equivalent of Jeff Goldblum and about as threatening.But hey lets do the zombie check list.Intolerable cretins for proganists - checkEverything is all satanic to an extent that teenage goth kids are telling him to lighten up - checkDeep south grime - checkAn incoherent narrative - checkCompletely unthreatening villains who have to coat themselves in clown makeup to make them appear anything tbu the drama school lovies they clearly are - double checkUtter trash, the most hilarious is that all of the villains (frankly even included the biggest one deathhead) have literally 0 muscle mass, these juggernauts of death and gladiators of war have the bodies of an ageing iggy pop. At no stage in a "horror" movie should you be thinking, 'what the hell? Why are you running from Goth glee club?'

I'm a fan of Rob Zombie's music and I'm a massive horror freak, but I'd be the first to admit that his films tend to miss the mark for me. House of 1000 corpses and The devils rejects were just ok, and Halloween was passable at best (let's not speak of the sequel, or Lords of Salem, or 3 from Hell)Due to my previous experiences, and also the absolute sh*t ton of negative reviews for 31, I wasn't exactly jazzed about watching it. But last night, I was in one of those moods where I didn't know what I wanted to watch, and I went with 31 on a whim. And I'm so glad I did.Let me be clear, my expectations for this were non-existent, which probably helped me out a fair bit (if you're expecting the worst, anything better than that is a bonus right?) The first 15 minutes I was kind of like ah, here we go again, the same attempts at replicating the early scenes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre that we've seen before. Glad I stuck with it though, because once things actually kicked off, I really enjoyed the ride. It moved along at a decent pace, and there was some dark humour that I appreciated in amongst the violence and gore. I'm genuinely shocked to say this, but 31 has been my favourite horror film that I've seen in quite some time.Let me end this by stating that this film is 100% for the horror freaks only - there is zero character development, no real plot, I've still no idea why this slaughterfest was actually taking place, and the aristocrats are hilariously hammy. But if you can just sit back, empty your mind and enjoy 31 for what it is, you might be pleasantly surprised.

Despite all the haters, you've got to hand it to Mr Zombie: he makes a mean splatter movie, very much in the vein of Gordon Hershall Lewis, but with superior art design, editing, effects, camerawork, sound, script and with a real nasty streak.A group of circus workers must survive the night in a hellish circus with homicidal clowns and a psychotic killer, whilst the owners of the circus, dressed like French Libertarians, bet on the outcome. Totally bonkers and possibly an influence on the hit TV series Squid Game, the film rattles along at a fair pace, rarely stopping to catch its breath, towards its inevitable cathartic outcome.Mr Zombie, he sure hates clowns.

If you have enjoyed most of Rob Zombies films then you more than likely have the poor taste in horror to find this passable. For me it’s just another of his poor attempts at making a 1970s horror that won’t ever be a good as House of 1000 Corpses. Did he really need to cast his wife in yet another mildly racist role? I suppose at least she isn’t wearing a Native American headdress for most of this film, but she could still have done without the problematic lines. Let’s be real, RZ hasn’t done a fully decent film since Devils Rejects and this is just another failure. I was not rooting for any of the people being hunted, you can kill them all off for all I cared about them. The antagonists are boring and without any depth or motivation. The Nazi little person just seemed to be in there shock value he’s not particularly scary, I’m disabled and I’m pretty sure I could have handled him. Don’t waste the precious hour and 45 minutes you’ll never get back watching this and tbh just avoid all future RZ releases, MF hasn’t done anything worth shouting about since the mid 00s anyway maybe he should just retire.

A different contributor suggests that this film is best watched after a few drinks.I would say this film is best watched after a full frontal lobotomy.There is only one frightening thing about this movie, and that's what Judy Geeson looks like these days.Otherwise it's an exercise in extreme tedium.

Rob and Sheri laughed all the way to the bank with this mess! Am I right in thinking it was crowdfunded? I'm thinking that everyone involved worked for free, probably for experience or cashed in favours, whilst Rob and missus just rolled around in the money idiots like me gave them. Its childish nonsense.

I am a huge Rob Zombie fan and after the trainwrecks that are Halloween 2 and Lords Of Salem I was hoping this would be a return ro form and its a huge steo in the right direction, although it leaves A LOT to be desired. Hopefully a sequel somewhere down the line will improve and explain. But O would reccomend any horror fan to check this out.