Monday already?!?! Hope you’ll had a great weekend!
So on Friday I left you with a new #nametherobzombiemovie #justforfun quiz.
Well done to all of you that guessed correctly that it was for 31.
I would say, from the response, about 50/50 for the correct and wrong answers. We’ll do another one soon! I’m thinking of changing it up to screenshots maybe.
Thanks for taking part! #robzombie #sherimoonzombie #rz31
The soundtrack to Rob Zombie's 31 will be released on vinyl on April 14 via Universal. It’s already available digitally.
The soundtrack features the score music, composed by Zombie, John 5, Bob Marlette, and Chris Harris, songs from Lynyrd Skynyrd, The James Gang, The Mamas & The Papas, and more, plus snippets of dialogue from the film.
The full tracklisting is below.
Tracklisting:
1. Call It A Day – Al Bowlly & Roy Fox And His Band
2. They Call Me Doom Head – Richard Brake (dialogue)
3. Walk Away – The James Gang
4. The Midway Say Sweet Charley – Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs (dialogue)
5. That Smell – Lynyrd Skynyrd
6. Fixing These Death Traps (Spoken Word) – Jeff Daniel Phillips (dialogue)
7. We Buried Her Beneath The Willows – Kitty Wells
8. You Digging What You See Pops? – Sheri Moon Zombie (dialogue)
9. Walking The Floor Over You (1941 Single Version) – Ernest Tubb
10. Wolfman Jack Halloween Show – Wolfman Jack (dialogue)
11. RV Attack – Bob Marlette and Chris Harris and John Five and Rob Zombie
12. We Are Going To Play – Malcolm McDowell (dialogue)
13. The Game Begins – Bob Marlette and Chris Harris and John Five and Rob Zombie
14. Number 4 – Pancho Molar (dialogue)
15. Bathroom Hell – Bob Marlette and John Five
16. Count Yourselves Lucky – David Ury and Lew Temple (dialogue)
17. Wet Kitty – Bob Marlette and Chris Harris and John Five and Rob Zombie
18. Hunt These Freaks Down – Sheri Moon Zombie (dialogue)
19. Inside The Cage – Bob Marlette and Chris Harris and John Five and Rob Zombie
20. Sex And Death – E.G. Daily and Torsten Voges (dialogue)
21. Death And Sex Fight – Bob Marlette and Chris Harris and John Five and Rob Zombie
22. Perfect Game – Richard Brake (dialogue)
23. Moonwheel Zero Gravity Whirlpool – Chris Harris
24. I’m Not Crazy – Richard Brake (dialogue)
25. California Dreamin’ (Single Version) – The Mamas & The Papas
26. The Eyes Of A True Champion – Richard Brake (dialogue)
27. The Show Must Go On – Bob Marlette and John Five
28. Another Exciting Year Of 31 – Malcolm McDowell (dialogue)
Rob Zombie is perhaps the most polarizing figure in all of horror cinema. Fans - myself included - enjoy the singular vision he brings to the genre in films like The Devil's Rejects and his Halloween remake, while vocal detractors criticize his habit for sameness. For those who fall in the latter category, Zombie's latest effort, 31, adds more fuel for the fire. But even his supporters will be left questioning how a filmmaker with such a unique voice could create something so uninspired.
Littered with white trash characters, killer clowns, eccentric Nazis, profanity-laden dialogue, excessive violence, gritty visuals, his usual stable of actors, and a 1970s Halloween setting, 31 feels more like a parody of a Rob Zombie film than the real thing. One would expect Zombie to avoid these familiar tropes to prevent being further pigeonholed, but instead he throws them all in to one middling script.
Set on October 31, 1976, the film follows five carnies - Charly (Sheri Moon Zombie, The Devil's Rejects), Roscoe (Jeff Daniel Phillips, The Lords of Salem), Panda (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, Welcome Back Kotter), Venus (Meg Foster, They Live), and Levon (Kevin Jackson) - who are kidnapped in an abandoned building, where they're forced to play a sadistic game known as 31. The rules - as outlined by the aristocratic, powdered wig-clad leader, Father Murder (Malcolm McDowell, Halloween) - are simple: survive the living hell for 12 hours and go free, or die trying.
They're being hunted by a number of colorful killers: Hispanic Nazi dwarf Sick-Head (Pancho Moler); chainsaw-wielding clown brothers Psycho-Head (Lew Temple, The Devil's Rejects) and Schizo-Head (David Ury, Breaking Bad); German giant Death-Head (Torsten Voges, The Big Lebowski) and his beloved minx, Sex-Head (Elizabeth Daily, Pee-wee's Big Adventure); and sadistic killing machine Doom-Head (Richard Brake, Batman Begins).
That's the whole plot. The only structure is one of repetition; the movie is little more than a series of monotonous scenes in which a killer is unleashed, a protagonist is attacked, and the killer is defeated; then the cycle repeats. It's essentially The Purge meets House of 1000 Corpses, except with little incentive for the audience to become invested. Zombie is in dire need of a co-writer to push him outside his comfort zone.
Zombie gets a lot of flack for casting his wife in all of his films, but I've found her work to be exceptional thus far. Working with such lazy material here, however, Moon Zombie has little character to grasp even as a lead. McDowell seems to be enjoying himself, but his role is pretty boring beyond the costume, his screentime is limited, and he hardly interacts with the main characters. Instead, he watches the action from a distance, alongside his fellow royalty - played by Judy Geeson (The Lords of Salem) and Jane Carr (Dear John).
The only character of substance is Doom-Head. Brake really digs into the intensity of the role, bringing to mind David Carradine's remarkable performance in Kill Bill. He commands attention every time he's on screen, beginning with the striking, black-and-white opening monologue. It's a shame such a strong performance and potentially iconic horror villain are wasted in a forgettable movie.
The one area in which Zombie succeeds, per usual, is the visuals. You can hate on his storytelling all day, but the man knows how to compose an interesting shot. Working with cinematographer David Daniel (Teen Wolf), Zombie channels The Devil's Rejects in the grainy, desert scenes before entering the dank, cavernous compound in which the game is played. Handheld camera is often employed to help sell the intensity, but it becomes so shaky during fight scenes that it's often difficult to tell exactly what's going on.
Zombie publicly stated that the film had to go through the MPAA rating process three times in order to achieve an R rating, but the unrated cut that he promised would be released on Blu-ray/DVD sadly never materialized. The rated cut still offers plenty of carnage - courtesy of special effects artist Wayne Toth, who has worked on all of Zombie's films - including wounds inflicted with chainsaws, axes, baseball bats, knives, and more.
The Blu-ray and DVD release of the film carries just two extras, but they contain all the information you could ever want to know about the project. The first is an audio commentary by Zombie, on whom you can always count to be open and informative about his process. The second is a two-hour making-of documentary that takes viewers step-by-step through pre-production and all 20 ambitious days of filming. Director Josh Hasty (Honeyspider) tells a more compelling story than the film itself by intercutting fly-on-the-wall set footage with reflections from Zombie on each day's experiences.
31 finds Rob Zombie at a crossroads in his career. Since the movie was crowdfunded, he had the freedom to do something a bit different. Instead, he played it safe and phoned it in. Will he continue to regurgitate the same trite material with which he's comfortable, or will he expand his horizons? Time will tell, but one can only hope that getting the aimless regression of 31 out of his system will allow Zombie to start taking risks again.
31 is available now on Blu-ray and DVD via Lionsgate.
Shoutout to my art page @escapehatchart on Instagram from one of my favorite actors Richard Brake aka Doomhead from Rob Zombie 31, 3 From Hell, Halloween 2, Game of Thrones, Mandy, Perfect Skin, many more! I'm so happy he did this for me and pronounced my entire name correctly which is something that is very hard to come by.
