Quartile rating: 5.5/10 · 1 rating
Five carnival workers are kidnapped and held hostage in an abandoned, Hell-like compound where they are forced to participate in a violent game, the goal of which is to survive twelve hours against a gang of sadistic clowns.
Rob Zombie's 31 is a visceral but hollow exercise in shock horror. The plot is threadbare even by survival-horror standards — five victims, twelve hours, killer clowns — offering little beyond escalating carnage. Acting ranges from committed but one-note (Sheri Moon Zombie) to campy overindulgence (Richard Brake's Doom-Head being the lone genuine standout). Cinematography has some of Zombie's signature gritty, desaturated aesthetic with kinetic handheld energy, earning a slight edge. Novelty is low — it cribs heavily from his own House of 1000 Corpses/Devil's Rejects formula, The Running Man, and general grindhouse pastiche without adding much new. The ending fumbles, resolving the survival stakes in a disappointingly anticlimactic fashion with little payoff for the audience's endurance.