31 (2016)
"Thumbs down." - Dom Coccaro, The Random Revue. It wouldn't surprise me if this was Rob Zombie's last film for a long while. Remember when he wanted to make a hockey movie? Well, he couldn't. I don't know the whole story, but its production was riddled with disputes. He knew what investors wanted; they simply wanted a safe, county fair fright flick. And so he developed 31, which meets the standard "Rob Zombie movie" criteria. It's clear that he's done with the horror genre. This is a scrawny, wizened hash of House of 1,000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects. In fact, it's nearly indistinguishable from those cult classics, only it doesn't have heart. Aww...
The dialogue is dreadful. Robert Bartleh Cummings (that's Mistah Z) can only write one kind of movie. The confounding fuck of it all is that 31 is that kind of movie, but for Robert's style to razzle-dazzle the viewer, the characters need to be likable or memorable. None of the people here fit that description. The "heroes" are boring and the villains - Rob's supposed grubstaker - lack personality. Can you imagine? This son of a bitch created Otis Firefly and Captain Spaulding. Okay, Doom Head is somewhat interesting, but that has more to do with Richard Brake's petrifying performance. The gore is no more eye-popping than the gore in Rejects or 2007's Halloween. My advice to Cummings? REFORM WHITE ZOMBIE!
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