Written, directed, and produced by Zombie, 31is a fiendish Halloween horror-gore romp set in 1976, in which five happy-go-lucky carnies on a cross-country road trip are kidnapped and hunted by murderous clowns in an escape room-style hideaway in the middle of nowhere. What I wanted was a film reminiscent of The Devil’s Rejects, what I got instead is one that is still scrambling to be House of 1000 Corpses and in truth that isn’t such a bad thing.ģ1 comes to UK cinemas and VOD from Friday 23rd Sept 2016.īe sure to like Pissed Off Geek on Facebook and follow them on Twitter to keep up to date with all the news and reviews.From beloved cult director Rob Zombie comes the new re-release of his spine-tingling carnival of horrors, 31, arriving October 26 on Blu-ray + Digital Steelbook from Lionsgate, exclusively at Target. I found the ending slightly disappointing, but the ride to get there is one that will keep you moving.
On the plus side though 31 is a film that is entertaining and managed to keep me engaged. What 31 needs is a spark that just isn’t there, and this is a shame. This works with a character like Doom-Head, but not with his other clown like friends. What Zombie has done is seemed to pull back on the intense energy of the piece and tried to make the film more menacing. It is easy to compare 31 with better movies like Rejects, and other genre movies like Hobo with a Shotgun and to see the problem. What I soon began to realise is the fact that 31 is lacking something, even if it is a fun movie. In fact, when the main characters are first attacked, I even thought “well this is just like corpses”. With 31 it is fair to say that it can’t get out of the shadow of Zombie’s past successes, especially The Devil’s Rejects and House of 1000 Corpses. It is almost telling of the state of horror films now that we’ve almost seen it all before. When it comes to movies like 31 I have a problem when I don’t care about the characters who we are meant to be empathising with. In ways this brings the weakness of the film into the spotlight, why aren’t the other characters as well-defined as him? He has the intensity that makes the character work and the determination that is needed to make Doom-Head such a domineering character.
In many ways Doom-Head is the saving grace of the movie with Blake dominating every scene he is in. There are some standout murderers such as a Mexican dwarf dressed as Hitler, A huge German in a tutu, and of course Doom-Head (Richard Blake). They are paper-thin characters with very little build-up. We have maniacs dressed as clowns and other weirdos with names such as Sick-Head (Pancho Moler), Psycho-Head (Lew Temple), Sex-Head (E.G. The concept of 31is very simple and easy to follow. They are soon kidnapped and are entered into “Murderworld” where a gang of maniacs looks to massacre them for the pleasure of the rich (including Malcolm MacDowell).
A group of carnival employees (including of course Sheri Moon Zombie) are travelling cross-country on Halloween. The first thing you’ll notice with the story of 31 is that it is in very familiar territory. With the release of 31, the question is, has he managed to pull off another Devil’s Rejects or is this more of a Halloween 2? He knows his horror and never bows down for the constant calls to conform to the politically correct society that seems to dominate the entertainment world now.
When it comes to Rob Zombie as a filmmaker I’ll admit I have something of a soft spot for his work.