31 (film)

31
Teaser poster
Directed by	Rob Zombie
Produced by	Mike Elliott Andy Gould Michael Sherman Matthew Perniciaro[1] Eddie Vaisman Rob Zombie
Written by	Rob Zombie
Starring	Sheri Moon Zombie Jeff Daniel Phillips Meg Foster Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs Kevin Jackson Richard Brake Elizabeth Daily Malcolm McDowell Judy Geeson Jane Carr
Music by	John 5
Cinematography	David Daniel
Edited by	Glenn Garland
Production companies	Bow + Arrow Entertainment PalmStar Media Protagonist Pictures[2] Spectacle Entertainment Group Windy Hill Pictures
Distributed by	Alchemy Front Row Filmed Entertainment[3] Lionsgate Premiere
Release dates	January 23, 2016 (2016-01-23) (United States)
Running time	102 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

31 is a 2016 American independent horror film written and directed by Rob Zombie, and starring Sheri Moon Zombie. The film was crowdfunded online two times at fanbacked.com.^[4]

The film revolves around five carnival workers' survival playing a game called "31" while evading murderers known as "The Heads" dressed as clowns that have names that define their unique personalities. At a test screening Zombie compared 31 to his 2005 film The Devil's Rejects.^[5]

Plot

During Halloween 1976 a group of carnival workers are traveling through the country in an RV, on their way to their next venue. Along the way they're stopped and attacked, with only a handful of them left alive - Charly (Sheri Moon Zombie), Venus (Meg Foster), Panda, Levon (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs), and Roscoe (Jeff Daniel Phillips). They're taken to a strange, large building, where three strange people wearing aristocratic wigs and powder force them to play "31". For the next 12 hours they must wander through a maze-like set of rooms where they must survive attempts by several people intent on torturing and murdering them. If they survive the full 12 hours they will be set free, although their captors freely express their disbelief that the captives will survive that long.

Cast

Production

Plans to create 31 were first announced in May 2014 via a teaser poster that showed the words "a Rob Zombie film", a bloody clown face, and the number "31".^[7] Fans and media outlets speculated that the film would be a third film in the House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects universe and would follow Sid Haig's character Captain Spaulding, that it could be a film centering upon serial killer John Wayne Gacy, or that it would be a third film in Zombie's rebooted Halloween film series.^[8] Zombie commented on the speculation, stating that it would not follow Captain Spaulding and would be an original story and was not based on any previous work.^[9] He also noted that 31 referred to October 31, Halloween.^[9] In July Zombie announced the plot of 31, which follows a group of five people that are forced to participate in a gruesome game called "31".^[10] Zombie also stated that he would use crowdfunding to cover part of the movie's costs, because "as the years go on, the game changes all the time, and a movie that you could get made years ago, you cannot get made anymore, because the business changes, things change."^[11] He added that crowdfunding would allow him to make a movie that might not have been otherwise funded traditionally and that "if you wanna do stuff outside the system, you've gotta function outside the system".^[11] Zombie later held a second Fanbacked.com campaign in February 2015 to raise additional funds for the film,^[12] stating that it was due to multiple requests from fans that wanted to contribute funding.^[13]

Zombie came up with the idea for 31 after reading a statistic that stated that Halloween is the "Number One day of the year when people go missing for some reason" and thought that it would make a good premise for a movie.^[14] He also received inspiration for the film as he was walking around his frightfest Great American Nightmare and watched the employees work while dressed like chainsaw-carrying clowns.^[15] Zombie has stated that he wanted to have a "very nasty, gritty, guerilla-style approach to the filmmaking" for 31, as it "fits the story and the vibe of the movie".^[14] Zombie began scouting locations in the summer of 2014 and initial filming was slated to begin in February 2015, but did not commence until that March.^{[14][16][17][18]} Filming for 31 wrapped in April 2015.^[19]

Release

31 premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival on January 23, 2016.^[20]

Rating

31 was submitted to the Motion Picture Association of America twice and both times received an NC-17 rating. The description as allegedly given by the MPAA notes "sadistic graphic violence, bizarre sexuality/nudity, pervasive disturbing images and some strong language."^[21] On January 5, 2016, the film was finally granted an "R" rating for "strong bloody horror violence, pervasive language, sexual content and drug use".

Reception

Critical reception for 31 has been mixed and the film currently holds a rating of 44% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 9 reviews, with an average rating of 4.9 out of 10.^[22] Much of the film's negative criticism centered around claims that the movie felt forced and unoriginal, with Variety writing that the "energetic exercise in forced badassery will be too silly and self-conscious to feel genuinely edgy, despite all the blood spilt and familiar taboos violated."^[23][24][25] 31 received praise from horror movie outlets such as Fangoria and Bloody Disgusting,^[26][27] the latter of which enjoyed the movie's soundtrack, which they felt "propels a lot of the violence".^[28]

In their review Film School Rejects commented that "31 is Zombie's mildly entertaining take on a stale and simple setup. You already know if it's for you."^[29]

References

External links

• Official website
• 31 at the Internet Movie Database
• 31 at Rotten Tomatoes