Rob Zombie’s 31 Is a Blood-filled Gorefest - Sundance Review
The films of Rob Zombie are interesting to me, but I've never liked any of them. I don't think he's a very good filmmaker, but I'm always curious to see what he does next. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because he throws a bunch of crazy weird shit out there that we don't normally get to see in most movies.
His latest film, 31, premiered at Sundance and so I decided to give it a shot. If you're a fan of Zombie's movies makes, then you will most likely enjoy this movie. I didn't like the movie at all. Zombie has really done nothing to improve his skills as a filmmaker. He's still just making the same old crap that involves crazy redneck people going on murderous rages and brutally killing people.
The movie is almost a carbon copy of A House of a 1000 Corpses but with a slightly different plot. 31 follows five carnival workers who are kidnapped by a silly Eyes Wide Shut kind of secret society and thrown into an abandoned compound where they are forced to survive a violent game over the next twelve hours while insane people dressed as clowns try to kill them. The film takes place on Halloween, and it's basically a Halloween maze of death and chaos. I'm sure we'll see a real maze like this at Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios, but without the real death.
It all starts with them being hunted down by a Mexican Nazi midget, and it just escalates and gets more jacked up from there. As you may have heard, the MPAA has given this film an NC-17 rating, which I think is appropriate for the subject matter and the amount of blood, gore, and violence that is in this movie. It's completely over the top in every way. I will say that the practical blood and gore effects in the movie were pretty incredible, and that was the best part of the movie. Unfortunately, it lacked in everything else.
The main reason I didn't like the film, though, was because it was completely unoriginal, and even though there's a lot of crazy shit that goes down, I just found it boring. Why? Because, well... I've already seen it! Then there's the acting, whch was atrocious. Unsurprisingly, the movie stars Zombie's wife Sherry Moon Zombie. That's just something you're going to get with Zombie's movies. It's so hard watching her, though, because she's not a very good actress. She does have her charm, though, and that's why she has a fanbase. The movie also stars Malcolm McDowell and Meg Foster.
I would like to see Zombie actually do something with substance. The guy has the ability to keep making movies, and I'd like to see him push himself to actually make a film that isn't like everything else he's done. It's just getting old. I'd like to see him make some kind of retro-style monster movie or something. The guy seems to have a love for those kinds of films.
I am curious to see what the fans of Rob Zombie will say about this movie. If you're ok with seeing the same stuff over and over again, then I'm sure you'll enjoy it.