Review of 31 (2016) by Janice P — 31 Oct 2016

They say that if you have seen any Rob Zombie film you've seen them all. So following that logic, I have purposely avoided watching his work since I watched "Lords of Salem" but after being told by many that I watched his worst film and that he deserves a second chance, I decided to watch his newest film. Did my opinion about the man change?

We follow 5 hillbillies that are captured and thrown into a sadistic survival game called "31" where they need to survive 12 hours while being chased by killers.

To be completely honest, I really dislike Rob Zombie's embarrassing style, both music and film, (he is basically a juvenile Kiss/Alice Cooper wannabe obsessed with Tobe Hooper's "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre") so I wasn't really hopeful and this film ended up being exactly what I expected. "31" has horrible acting (with Sheri Moon Zombie at the helm this film never stood a chance, acting wise), the characters are your typical Rob Zombie rednecks that are just there to be punished, the score is what you would expect for an industrial musician obsessed with classic rock, the visuals aren't striking (not even shocking), the story is basically "The Running Man" but with Zombie's style (it reminds me of the Mutant Bash TV segment of Rage, one of my favorite FPS games), the screenplay is vulgar, juvenile and lazy; the editing is extremely amateurish (and the shaky cam doesn't help), the killers aren't memorable (no, not even the hillbilly Joker), the dialog is so embarrassing as it tries hard to sound edgy and badass, and the ending is so anticlimactic and rushed that it shows that Zombie had no idea of what to do. But to be fair, no one watches a Rob Zombie film for the acting, story or characters, but for his overproduced style and his gimmicky 'shocking' imagery, and in that aspect I guess Zombie delivers.

"31" is an incoherent music video disguised as a movie, in other words your typical Rob Zombie film. It is disgusting, vulgar, juvenile, nauseatingly edited, poorly written and horribly performed. If you enjoy Rob Zombie then I recommend to ignore my review and go watch anyway, if not then perhaps you should avoid this film as there is nothing worth watching in here.