This is the newest film from director/musician Rob Zombie and if your familiar with his work than you will know what to expect. What you get is a bunch of white trash characters put in a situation against another group of evil trashy characters. For me that spells out a great time! I think I fit more in the minority when it comes to this film because I actually enjoyed this one. It's sick, intense and simply brutal! Is it his best film? No. Is it sickly enjoyable? Yes! Let's dig into this grease painted corpse and see what it has to offer!
I personally have enjoyed Rob Zombie's in one way or another even if they are not so great. 31 is a film in which you have a group of people that end up in a bad situation in which they have to fight their way out of it. There is nothing new being done here, if you have seen films like Battle Royale or The Hunger Games than you will know how this films premise is setup, but add in an insane amount of profanity. To me the bad parts about this film are really only 2 things, the first is that I did not feel for any of the characters and want them to survive. The second part is that it's another film with Sheri Moon Zombie as a main protagonist and it's honestly her worst performance and some of her worst dialogue. Rob really needs to quit using her in all of his films.
That leads me into the cast of this film, well let's just say I only really liked 3 of the characters. The first one is Richard Brake who is the highlight of this film as Doom Head. His character has the charisma of Charles Manson and the brutality of Jack the Ripper! Every scene that he is in he commands your attention and he gets it. Richard Brake is putting his all into his role and it shows. The speech from Doom Head at the opening of the film is some of the best dialogue you will get until the next time he shows up way later in the film. Bottomline he could very well become the next horror icon. The second character I liked was that of Sick Head who was played by Ponch Moler which is a dwarf dressed up like clown version of hitler. To me that is so outrageous awesome because of how over-the-top it is. Also he speaks spanish alot which makes it odd due to him being a nazi killer clown. The final character I liked was Roscoe Pepper which is played by Jeff Daniel Phillips. I liked him because he was the type of character that goes through alot of shit and keeps chugging on until his dying breath.
One thing I must talk about is the gore and kills in this film. Well to be honest the kills are nothing that I have not already seen before. If I had to pick a favorite than I would go with the chainsaw to the gut on one of the killer clowns. The gore is done well and looks good, very much like the gore in all of his other films. Nothing too over the top or overly extreme. If you are looking for something extremely gory than this film won't satisfy your thirst, but if you want gore that is pretty average then you'll be just fine.
The thing that I absolutely like most about this film is that it is intense from about 20 minutes in until the very end. Once it got going it really got going. Despite the fact I could predict what would happen next I still enjoyed the depravity that is "31". The bottomline is that if you like Zombie's films than you will probably enjoy this one, but if not than you will probably hate it. If I had to rank it amongst his other films I would say it's my 4th favorite below "The Haunted World of El Superbeasto", "House of 1,000 Corpses", and at the top "The Devil's Rejects". I will warn you that if you have not seen any of Zombie's films before than I would not start with this one, but if you decide to please keep in mind his films can be a little too vulgar to an average moviegoer.
-Daniel Lee
Director: Rob Zombie
Lead Actor/Actress: Sheri Moon Zombie, Richard Brake, ect.
Genre: Horror
Blu-ray Release Year: 2016
Theatrical Release Year: 2016
Time Length: 103 mins.
Rating: R
Region Code: Region A
Release Company: Lionsgate Home Entertainment
Website:
www.lionsgate.com
This is the newest film from director/musician Rob Zombie and if your familiar with his work than you will know what to expect. What you get is a bunch of white trash characters put in a situation against another group of evil trashy characters. For me that spells out a great time! I think I fit more in the minority when it comes to this film because I actually enjoyed this one. It's sick, intense and simply brutal! Is it his best film? No. Is it sickly enjoyable? Yes! Let's dig into this grease painted corpse and see what it has to offer!
