31 Review

 

IMDB:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3835080/

 

TRAILER:

Trailer uploaded to youtube by:  JoBlo Movie Trailers

 

Again been away, since life continues to suck but enough of me.  Got a Shudder trial, and some of the limited titles on there looked pretty decent, at 5 bucks a month likely keep it. My first pick off this, had not been in a free venue, I would not have bothered.

 

Don’t get me wrong, I like Rob Zombie, his music is fine enough, some of it bordering on classic, I like his image and his love of the genre.  I loved House of 1000 Corpses,  Devil’s Rejects is my favorite film ever.  However,  Hallowe’en was underwhelming, bordering  on brainless, the sequel was sub par, made very little sense, and I absolutely hated Lords of Salem.  Oh I forgot how unwatchable El Superbeasto was… Or was that time he preached on about remaking the Blob, without any blob in it….  Then came the fact this was crowd funded. sounded cliched, a mixture of various sub par films jammed together.  I am expecting flashy, boring , dreadful schlock, and not in good way we all love every now and then.

Ok, first off Shudder, your controls should be visible by default, this was an annoyance.  And buffering, what the hell?  I don’t have fastest highspeed, it’s 60mpbs, but should not be buffering this much, especially this quickly.  Alright this will become a dual review.  Oh now it crashed completely, and wont reload…

So, bugs worked out, So quick word, from opening sequence, slightly feels familiar, even into title sequence, wow Meg Foster has not aged well, maybe I was wrong on this one?

Alright, well, as expected, is a mishmash of been done before.  Rob seems to have issues with original thought, instead opting for combining things, that often don’t work.  A masterpiece, this is not.  However, as a junk food horror film, it’s loaded with some deliciousness.

The basic premise is your standard, road trip gone wrong.  With mostly unlikeable characters, led by of course,  Sherri Moon Zombie, on a cross country carnival trip, with little to no carnival equipment with them.  Characters are your stock variety, half of which are dispatched immediately, rendering some devolpment they had, oddly as nothing characters, wasted, while leads, had little to none whatsoever.  Characters and dialogue range from mundane to cringeworthy awful.  The leads, besides a Jamaican gentleman, are bland, boring, whiny or deserving of their fates, thru acts of stupidity, or being mundane as hell.

The antagonists, well, some are slightly creative, in the ooohhhh how shocking,  sickhead, being a nazi, hispanic, fould mouthed dwarf, to typical chop top knock off clown brothers, and some rich folk betting on this all, which they all did, for ummm reasons.  There is no explanation as to why, other than wager, over a pentagram.  There seems like a lot of missing plot, plot holes come fast, furious and often.  There is foreshadowing, that either leads to nowhere at all, or doesn’t pay off.  This reminds me a lot of the Barburrito nachos at the local big box centre,  they look pretty good, are messy but not as much as you would want, but also overblown, over priced and don’t really pan out.  They get the job, sure, but when other similar options are available, you wouldn’t choose them.

The story line is most Dangerous game cum The Running Man.  People are randomly lured to a factory of sorts, forced to compete against various serial killers and try to last 12 hours.  No one having done so somehow, despite incompetent and weak killers.  Then for reasons, they’re are all circus themed, cause umm plot sure?   And person’s running this,are dressed in victorian age french garb and wigs, and powder, because…   The 5 survivors, try to work together, to get out of the dark, hopeless, endless mazes, bicker and lose their humanity, having to become psychotic themselves.

That’s all I am putting out for plot, really, that is over stating it.  There is very little.  Atmosphere, as normal is great here, again a 70s setting, which somewhat works and somewhat also makes plot less sensical due to technological limitations.  It’s very dirty, grimy, and dark, has great lighting, and works well in visual sense.  Doomhead, whom is introduced in the opening segment then vanished until climax, was intriguing and underused character.  The other umm heads, ok again why ? on these ridiculous character names?  Were standard tired Zombie cliches, ranging from mundane again to annoying. There was a lot of missed opportunity here,  some odd casting,  Lew Temple doing Bill Moseley as Psycho head aka diet coke of choptop was odd, since Moseley and Zombie work well together.  I liked Richard Brake as Doom-head, he had a great presence and was the perfect military man go mad in 70s much like in Combat Shock, or Forced Entry.

I was expecting this to be a right disaster.  Instead I came out pleasantly surprised with a good mindless little time waster, that looked pretty damn good, flawed as hell and some frustrating points, but was satisfying in the junk food way.  I may lose IQ points for it, but I recommend it, as a fun B movie, drinks or riffs.

 

RATING:  B- (71%)

PROS:

Atmosphere, some great sets, visuals are strong.  Decent gore effects, doesn’t lag too much, and Richard Brake is great.

CONS:

Dialogue, dialogue, and more dialogue, often Eli Roth levels bad.  Mostly unlikeable mains, cliched villains.  More plot holes than I have seen in a very long time.  Why is Sherri Moon the main again, although she is alright in this, it’s tiresome.