Watching a bad movie doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad experience. Even the worst films can boast a good idea or two, and that’s why we’re trying to look on the bright side with The Silver Lining, where we shine a light on the best parts of traditionally maligned horror flicks.
This time, we’ll be discussing Rob Zombie’s 2016 throwback, 31.
In the United States, it’s said that more people disappear on Halloween than on any other night of the year. While this isn’t all that surprising when you consider that the holiday encourages children to walk around unsupervised and interact with costumed strangers, this eerie factoid would inspire rocker-turned-filmmaker Rob Zombie to come up with a story about who might be responsible for these mysterious vanishings.
Taking inspiration from grindhouse classics like the Ilsa films and Two Thousand Maniacs!, this retro thriller would also borrow from the deadly game shows of movies like The Running Man in a gory period piece. Simply titled “31”, the finished film depicts a single night of terror as a bizarre secret society abducts a group of carnival workers. Finding themselves in a macabre labyrinth, the ill-fated carnies are forced to compete in a cruel game against a series of costumed psychopaths in the world’s bloodiest Halloween celebration.
With the film shaping up to be a no-holds-barred love letter to the exploitation flicks of yore, and Zombie insisting on working outside the studio system so that the finished movie could be as hardcore as he (and the fans) wanted it to be, horror hounds were ecstatic when the project was first announced.
SO WHAT WENT WRONG?
Earning back a little over half of its $1.5 million budget and garnering a measly 35% on Metacritic, it’s clear that 31 wasn’t the underground hit that Zombie had hoped for. Even die-hard fans had difficulty warming up to the low-budget gore-fest, accusing the flick of simply rehashing the director’s favorite tropes on a shoestring budget. Once the dust finally settled, most critics agreed that 31 was the worst entry in Zombie’s filmography, but very few of them discussed the reasons why the film ended up the way it did.
Aiming to avoid studio meddling, Zombie opted to raise a significant part of the film’s budget through crowdfunding websites. This ended up contributing to some of the film’s issues, with the crew almost constantly running on fumes despite two successful online funding campaigns. While the lack of corporate oversight allowed for more freedom during production, the ensuing technical limitations took their toll on the story the filmmaker was trying to tell.
Zombie’s choice of shooting the film guerilla-style also didn’t seem to help, with the director favoring messy handheld shots when chronicling the 12-hour-long murder spree conducted by the psychotic “Heads”. At the end of the day, the grimy production design and lo-fi photography left many audiences thinking that the end result looked cheap when compared to Zombie’s previous work, and some critics even compared the finished product to a rushed music video.
The film’s nihilistic mean streak didn’t win over a lot of fans either, with even dedicated horror hounds complaining about the script’s seemingly excessive brutality and profanity for profanity’s sake. Zombie even had a hard time submitting the completed feature to the MPAA, which insisted on several cuts in order to secure an R rating for a theatrical release. While I personally think that the more vicious elements of the movie are its greatest strengths, especially when it comes to the kills, I understand why mainstream audiences might fail to connect with such a bleak picture.
THE SILVER LINING
31 has grown on me over the years. While it’s not a traditionally good horror flick and I agree that it ranks quite low on Zombie’s filmography, the finished product is still way better than it has any right to be. If you can look past the low production value, shoddy cinematography and familiar script, there are quite a few positive elements that prove beyond a doubt that Rob Zombie is still a skilled auteur even when he stumbles.
For starters, the retro style can actually be quite engaging, with the quick and dirty photography harkening back to Quentin Tarantino’s claim that Rob Zombie is the only living director that’s still making honest-to-God exploitation flicks. Featuring everything from little people in Nazi uniforms to chainsaw-wielding clowns, the manic energy behind this neo-Grindhouse experiment suggests that it would have been right at home in a smoke-filled theater back in the mid-1970s.
Veteran character actor Richard Brake also elevates the film with his powerhouse performance as “Doomhead”. While he’s only in the picture during the very beginning and the very end, Brake steals the show and enhances every single scene he’s in. From his spine-chilling monologues to his genuinely threatening presence, Brake is easily the best part of the movie and it’s a damned shame that the script doesn’t do more with him. With his grisly clown makeup and psychopathic tendencies, it’s also easy to see why a lot of fans believe that the actor would have made for a terrifying Joker.
Ironically, despite being attached to a less-than-stellar motion picture, the film’s kick-ass finale is likely one of Zombie’s best ever. The chilling use of Aerosmith’s Dream On (suggested by Sheri Moon Zombie herself) enhances the nihilistic confrontation between a battered Charly and Doomhead, making for a near-perfect example of the infamous Bolivian Army Ending trope.
It may be far from Zombie’s best work, but I think 31 improves with repeated viewings and will likely live on with a small but dedicated cult following. After all, “in hell, everybody loves popcorn”, and there’s no denying that this is one hell of a popcorn flick.