As we like to say around here, the dirtier you work, the luckier you get.
Thirteen years and seven features into his directing career, nobody should take in a Rob Zombie film expecting to be blown away by the story or his dialogue, which is functional at best and ridden with dick-swinging posturing the rest of the time. His latest auteurist effort, 31, takes its title from the 31st of October, on which the bulk of it is set -- in the year 1976 because Zombie will never lose his hard-on for '70s horror films. Before that, though, comes an inky, black-and-white prologue in which a rough-looking customer by the name of Doom-Head (Richard Brake) comes forward to address the viewer with a profanity-laden monologue detailing why, in spite of his donning of clown-white makeup, he is a not a clown. "I'm not here to make you happy," he explains. "I'm not here to brighten your dismal day. And I am certainly not here to elicit an amused response." Considering how much of an endurance test 31 turns out to be, it's as if he's speaking for his writer/director in this moment, and when Zombie finally cuts to his audience, it's a bruised and bloodied priest who's tied to a chair and doesn't pose much of a challenge to this remorseless killer. Instead, what this brief introduction does is serve notice that when Doom-Head gets called up to deal with the film's protagonists, he won't be fucking around.
Said protagonists are a quintet of carnies -- played by Sheri Moon Zombie, Jeff Daniel Phillips, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs (of Cooley High and Welcome Back, Kotter fame, sporting a thick Jamaican accent), Meg Foster, and Kevin Jackson -- who are between engagements when they're waylaid by a literal bunch of clowns. They are then transported to an art director's wet dream of a compound and forced to play a sick game of survival for the benefit of the sadistic Father Murder (Malcolm McDowell), Sister Dragon (Judy Geeson), and Sister Serpent (Jane Carr), who dress up like 18th-century courtiers and wager on the order in which their victims will meet their fates. As for the made-up murderers who do their bidding, these include Sick-Head (a midget Mexican Nazi), the chainsaw-wielding Psycho-Head and Schizo-Head, the romantically paired Sex-Head and Death-Head (the former played by E.G. Daily, the latter a German, but not a Nazi), and the aforementioned Doom-Head. Of course, his services wouldn't be required if the carnies didn't turn out to be so good at eliminating his predecessors, but they suffer losses and serious injuries along the way as well.
In many ways, 31 feels like a huge step back for Zombie, who expressed a desire to move on from horror and exploitation while promoting The Lords of Salem. Instead, this film doubles down on both and appears to primarily be aimed at anyone who thought The Devil's Rejects wasn't nihilistic enough. It's also great for anybody who hasn't gotten the James Gang's "Walk Away" stuck in their head for a while. In fact, that may turn out to be its most lasting legacy for me. It's hours later as I write this and I still haven't shaken it.