31 (2016)

Best movie of this year hands down!

You won't be disappointed!

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Excellent adaptation.

In the black and white intro some guy gives, I kid you not, a 6-minute speech to the camera. Well, he's supposed to be talking to a priest he's been torturing and eventually kills him with a hatchet.Next we meet perhaps the most unremarkable and dullest cast of character this side of a lost-footage horror. They are driving somewhere when they run into a bunch of scarecrows blocking the road. When they stop and get out, they are attacked by a bunch of guys. Two of the characters are killed for some reason. The rest are taken to what looks like a church where they are chained. They are told they are now part of a survival game called 31 (why 31?). They have to survive a bunch of killers who will go after them one by one. The game will last 12 hours. The organizers place bets by ranking which on of the goofs will last longer.The first killer is a Hispanic little person dressed up as Hitler (what the...) who delivers most of his lines in Spanish for no good reason whatsoever, even though he can speak perfect English. Yup, so here you have 5 adults (3 male, 2 female) each with a club or some weapon, screaming, running in horror, and hiding from some little person cursing in Spanish.Next they have to face two guys with chainsaws. Then a big German dude and his sexy girlfriend. At last the survivors have to face the guy from the intro who is the expert killer. In between the challenges we hear the organizers talking about the odds and placing their bets.Of course one person survives for the weirdest of reasons. And then there's a very dissatisfying ending, not just in terms of the main villain and the main good character but also in terms of the organizers of the whole thing. No answers about anything are provided.31 just doesn't work. The cinematography is dark and ugly. Dialogue is utterly pointless. Direction is a mess, editing is a disaster. The music is good though. The main concept isn't bad, or new for that matter. A game of death where a group of people have to survive attackers so the decadent rich can entertain themselves and play with the lives of regular folk, but with a touch of Rob Zombie. It should have worked as a gory movie. Instead they cut this movie down to an R-rating and it bombed anyway at the box office. When will they ever learn? The only thing they get by censoring a horror movie is alienating the fans. And Zombie must have fewer and fewer of those with every movie he releases. And it's understandable, his movies are getting worse and worse. It leads me to wonder, just who did really direct The Devil's Rejects? The long behind-the-scenes feature explains a lot. Zombie's movie-making process is a catastrophe. He has a "whatever, anything goes" improvised approach with little in terms of a vision. He doesn't care about the end result the audience will see. He opposes a "polished" product, which is fine if you go with the "raw" concept and actually take it seriously and do something with it. He seems rather disinterested and bored with making movies. Personally, I don't have a problem with the performances. Sure, not all are that good, but many are. Elizabeth Daily is just adorable. Richard Brake gives a remarkable committed performance.There's some nice nudity, the occasional gore but not much else worthwhile.

Rob Zombie does his version of "Running Man" in this film. A group of carnival travelers are taken prisoner by Malcolm McDowell (replaces Richard Dawson) and company and are forced to participate in a survival game called "31" because it takes place on Halloween. They are placed in what appears to be a steam plant while hunters are introduced as in "Running Man"...odds are established and wages made. The first killer was a Hispanic midget Nazi (Pancho Moler). Sheri Moon Zombie plays the same oversexed vulgar character that she normally does. Since her husband wrote the script, she gets to play Arnold and if you are thinking of a final girl... Doom-Head played magnificently by Richard Brake in bad clown make-up reminded me of the Heath Ledger Joker as he keeps telling himself, "I'm not crazy. I'm in control." The film delivers plenty of blood, guts, bad jokes, sex, full frontal nudity, vulgarity, torture, abuse...all in good fun. The theater version was cut to go from NC-17 to R. After the first cut, it was still NC-17. It took a second cut to get it to R. The Blu-Ray version is supposed to be uncut. It's Rob Zombie, you know what to expect.Nudity includes: Andrea Dora, Ginger Lynn, Devin Sidell, Shawn Rougeron, Megan Albertus

While I don't think its as bad as as most people seem to be voting this movie, its far from good. Its your typical, run of the mill "people locked in a building and have to escape while getting hunted down by psychopathic killers dressed as midget zombies, clowns or the joker out of batman armed with chainsaws, knives and big sticks" film.Its OK(ish) in all honesty, much better than Lords of Salem not as good as House of 1000 Corpses or Devils rejects - horror has become a very disappointing genre, there have been very, very few notable horror movies released in the last decade and this is no exception, just more fodder for the bargain bin.

I don't know why this movie is getting such bad reviews. I may be alone here but Rob Zombie hasn't made a movie that I didn't love. Everything about this for me was magical, especially the open ending. The cast is great, the story is great, special effects... It's all great. I just think that I have an attachment to him as a director and enjoy what he is putting out.