A pile of crap film that hides a single brilliant performance.
31 is Rob Zombie’s latest film. Honestly, I thought it sucked. I am just going to get that out of the way right away. If you enjoyed the film, we will have to agree to disagree.
31 might be Zombie’s worst film. I feel like I have spent years defending the man from other horror fans. I enjoy many of his films, but this one suffers big time from trying-too-hard syndrome. A Spanish speaking, Nazi little person. If you turn up the volume loud enough you can probably hear Zombie chuckling “boy this will piss people off.” It pissed me off, not because it is offensive, but because it is stupid. Want to push people’s buttons? Cool, do it, but do it smart. At best, this character is dumb. At worst, the character reflects lazy writing.
A group of carnival workers (why carnival workers, you ask? I have no idea. It is not relevant to the plot in any way) gets sucked into a deadly game where they have to try to survive in a hellish compound for 12 hours. Sounds simple, right? You will not believe how the long the film takes to getting to the point.
Good characters make or break a horror film (really any film), and the characters here suck. I cannot remember anything about our protagonists other than they all annoying. Watching them die meant absolutely nothing to me. If anything, the film is boring for the majority of it.
The real tragedy of this film is the astonishing performance by Richard Brake as Doom-Head. Brake’s performance is awesome. He embodies the best a horror villain can be: cruel, sadistic, funny, and completely mad. Not only is he the best part of this film, he is one of the best villains to be in a gorror (that’s a term for gore horror I just made up) films in quite a while. It sucks that his excellence is drowned out in this otherwise awful movie. Watch his opening monologue, and then fast-forward until he comes back. Otherwise, prepare for a shitty experience. 1/10 (Brake gets a 10/10 for being a wickedly fun villain).
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