31 (2016)

Director: Rob Zombie

Writer: Rob Zombie

Composers: Chris Harris, John 5, Bob Marlette, Rob Zombie

Starring: Sheri Moon Zombie, Jeff Daniel Phillips, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, Meg Foster, Kevin Jackson, Malcolm McDowell, Jane Carr, Judy Geeson, Richard Brake, Pancho Moler, David Ury, Lew Temple, Torsten Voges, Elizabeth Daily, Michael 'Red Bone' Alcott, Esperanza America, Andrea Dora, Tracey Walter, Ginger Lynn

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Welcome To Hell

Plot: In 1976, on the eve of Halloween, an itinerant troupe is forced to stop their truck and attacked by strangers. Charly, Venus Virgo, Panda Thomas, Levon Wally and Roscoe Pepper survive. They are forced to participate in a sadistic game called "31" for 12 hours, and whoever survives will be released.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

I've seen most of Zombie's movies and I really dig this guy's work for the most part.  The lower budget on this one shows a little but he does get a lot of mileage out of what's there.  This picture was crowd funded but to what degree I don't know.  I mostly LOVE the cast...mostly.  If Sheri wasn't married to Zombie then I'd be less inclined to find fault in her taking center stage except that it's nice when that rare pick-'em-off'-one-by-one horror movie comes along that does something different with the lone survivor being the obvious chick you can pick out at the beginning of the picture.  Phillips and Brake are fantastic, especially Brake.  He's fantastic.  I really like how Zombie casts his pictures with maybe the exception of Sheri who often seems like she's trying to hard to 'act'.  Sometimes she does really well but others...  There is a lot of gore and the bad guys are fun.  And there's some nudity (yah!).  The biggest issue I have, though, is with the camerawork and fast editing during the fight scenes.  Zombie stays in close for all of the action/horror stuff, always moving the camera and cutting it quick so all you get are frenetic scenes without an opportunity to soak anything in.  It was really frustrating and I should probably lower my score by another half point just for that.  Since this is his latest film, I hope that this being crowd funded doesn't mean he's having a hard time getting backing for his movies.  I don't mind the lower budget nature of this one but I don't want to see his movie career on the downward slope to where he can't get much made the way he wants it.  I like his horror voice and I want more.  His movies are distinctively his and they're usually a lot of fun.