Combining elements of BATTLE ROYALE and THE RUNNING MAN, the stage for 31 is simply set: Five carnies (including one played by Sheri Moon Zombie) are abducted and forced to enter a survival game. Conceptualizing his scenario from the statistic that Halloween (i.e. October 31) is the day that the most people go missing, Zombie creates a “Murder World” where three bewigged British fops (the leader played by Malcolm McDowell) take mortality bets on the five captured circus folk as they are chased around an industrial labyrinth. Those doing the chasing are a series of pseudo archetypal evil clowns.
To be fair, the clowns are a fun bunch. Led by Richard Brake as Doom-Head (more on him in a bit), there are also Sex-Head, Death-Head, Schizo-Head, Psycho-Head and Sick-Head. Why the “Head” monikers? It’s never fully explained. There is a lot here that is never fully explained.
Set on Halloween 1976, a classic rock soundtrack propels a lot of the violence. It seems Zombie found the sweet spot between his punishing aesthetic and letting the audience have a rewarding catharsis by the end.
Where there is promise, there is expectation, but Zombie just seems to get lost in the gimmickry—lost in his own labyrinth.
For example the cinematography. The guerrilla shooting style of 31 has its moments, and occasionally adds to the tension, but overall it becomes annoying, as the eye has trouble following the scenes. This may have been on purpose, to add a chaotic sense to the action, but the result is the audience rubbing their eyes out of strain.
Our hamsters in the maze (the five carnies) don’t really serve a purpose either, other than to be killed in cool ways. Yes, that is the point, and the acting is solid at times, but with a little bit more effort put into the script, what comes off as just crass and corny could have been crass and funny. There are times when the lines seem to die as soon as they leave the victims’ mouths, and the characterizations become confusing: one moment they’re screaming in fear, and the next they’re sharing funny stories about good times and fond memories.
There’s a bevy of unanswered questions as well. Who are those three evil fops? Why are they betting? Why does the little clown like Hitler so much? How the hell did the marionette show end up in that crappy house? Some of these questions are in jest, but if it weren’t for the film’s moments of promise, there wouldn’t be that feeling of being cheated in the end. The overall sensation 31 leaves you with is that it wasn’t taken seriously—that it was done on a whim, rather than with a passion.
If the point of 31 was to create homage to low-rent, gratuitous cinema, you can’t argue it succeeds, and fans of Zombie’s traditional grit and gore will find those sensibilities unfulfilled. But those who want a little more brains and heart spliced in between slices and chops will walk away—perhaps as intended—feeling a little bit dirty.
6.5/10
