A Surprisingly Enjoyable Movie (Spoilers)
For the past couple of years, I’ve reviewed a Halloween movie to celebrate the big day. Though there are still plenty of installments left, I decided to forgo that this year. There are multiple reasons for that. One is how if I were to do another Halloween review, it would cover both Halloween IIs. If memory serves, they both have their moments, but aren’t entries I’m in a huge hurry to rewatch.
Another reason is my schedule. I wanted to challenge myself by writing a 40,000 word horror novella entirely within the month of October. I failed hard at that, but there’s always next year. Besides the 200th review for this site, I also spent October working on this massive article for MovieWeb that should be publishing soon. There were also my other journalistic duties for MovieWeb and Streetsblog Chicago, plus my annual Halloween horror movie watchlist. So I had a bit of a busy month.
I still wanted to keep the tradition alive though, so I found a different Halloween movie to review. 31, released back in 2016. It was written and directed by Rob Zombie, who you’d think would be sick of the holiday after the turbulence of making Halloween (2007) and Halloween II (2009). It also continues his efforts to make you afraid of clowns after Captain Spaulding (Sid Haig).
The Setup
The first part of this movie, after a brief prologue, is spent introducing us to our future victims. They’re a travelling carnival that includes Charly (Sheri Moon Zombie), Roscoe Pepper (Jeff Daniel Phillips), Panda Thomas (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs), Venus Virgo (Meg Foster), and Levon Wally (Kevin Jackson). They’re all as rude and crude as you’d expect Rob Zombie characters to be, but not without their redeeming qualities.
The first part is kind of slow, but things pick up considerably when the troupe is kidnapped by a goup of psychos playing aristocrats. Father Murder (Malcolm McDowell), Sister Dragon (Judy Geeson), and Sister Serpent (Jane Carr) inform them that they’re going to be playing “31,” where they’ll have to survive against a group of clowns called the Heads for twelve hours.
Don’t Call Him A Clown
All the Heads are great, but the MVP of the film is Doom-Head, best described as the Joker meets Count Orlok. The latter of which might be a deliberate emulation on Doom-Head’s part, since he’s shown watching Nosferatu at one point. He’s played by the always awesome Richard Brake, whose casting is appropriate in two ways.
One, prior to 31, Brake was in Batman Begins as Joe Chill, the man who killed Batman’s parents. Like Jack Napier (Jack Nicholson) did in Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman film. After 31, Brake also played Orlok (albeit spelled Orlock) in The Munsters (2022), which was also written and directed by Zombie. In that film he went on a date with Lily (Moon Zombie).
There’s a bit of Otis B. Driftwood (Bill Mosely), another Rob Zombie character, in Doom-Head as well. Despite what you might expect from their barbaric outward appearances, both characters reveal themselves to be surprisingly well-read and philosophical. In Doom-Head’s case, at separate points he quotes Che Guevara and P.T. Barnum.
The Reception
Now, Rotten Tomatoes has come under fire for its fresh/rotten binary (despite being on a scale) and recent revelations that studios have been gaming the system by paying for good reviews. However, I still think it’s a good site to check not whether a movie is good, but if people like it or not. The critical score for 31 is 46%, but the audience score is 35%, which is even worse.
Yikes, and that audience likely consists primarily of horror and Rob Zombie fanboys. In other words, the people who you’d expect to like the movie regardless of its quality. The audience score being not only that low, but worse than what the critics were saying, was something I considered a massive red flag. I didn’t have high hopes for 31. Of course, I seem to be in the minority here because I actually liked the movie.
Yeah, it does have its problems. The characters are on the thin side and Zombie’s style isn’t for everyone, but it’s certainly entertaining. Zombie has a real knack for crafting great visuals and his use of music is also pretty good. The way “Dream On” plays at the very end of the film is almost as good as “Free Bird” in The Devil’s Rejects. So, you might regret it, but I say give this one a shot if you haven’t already.
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