31 (US - 2016) Written and directed by Rob Zombie. Cast: Sheri Moon Zombie, Malcolm McDowell, Judy Geeson, Jeff Daniel Phillips, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, Meg Foster, Kevin Jackson, Jane Carr, Richard Brake, Lew Temple, Daniel Roebuck, Pancho Moler, David Ury, Torsten Voges, E.G. Daily, Esperanza America, Andrea Dora, Michael "Redbone" Alcott, Tracey Walter, Ginger Lynn Allen, Devin Sidell. (R, 103 mins) Earlier this year, critic/blogger Jason Coffman wrote a fascinating piece about horror fandom that went viral and quite frankly deserves a Pulitzer. It was filled with things that needed to be said, such as, in no uncertain terms, that horror fans are the worst. Of course, that's a gross generalization on my part that wasn't exactly Coffman's central thesis, but he questioned why a very vocal contingent of horror fans--he called them the "gatekeepers"--had such vehemently negative reactions to thoughtful, serious horror films that received significant accolades from critics outside of horror circles. The piece was written specifically in response to audiences turning on THE WITCH, but it also referenced similarly acclaimed offerings like THE BABADOOK and IT FOLLOWS. To reject original, thought-provoking films that fall in the horror realm, to question their genre validity because they've been praised by those outside the insulated horror bubble, Coffman posited, is to "reinforce the image of the 'horror fan' as a slack-jawed dullard whose only interests are sex and gore."
Well, he's right. And you can thank the gatekeepers for 31, the latest film from horror/metal icon Rob Zombie. Financed in large part by crowdfunding, 31 is Zombie's gift to his fans, the gatekeepers who adore him. To criticize Zombie--to even question him--is verboten in horror gatekeeper circles. Zombie is a guy who knows and loves horror movies. It showed in his days fronting the band White Zombie, itself named after the 1932 Bela Lugosi classic. But after 16 years and with six feature films under his belt, shouldn't there be some kind of progress by now? I'll give Zombie props where it's due: his second film, THE DEVIL'S REJECTS, is his masterpiece, a definitive mission statement that melded the '70s aesthetic of Tobe Hooper and hillbilly horror with the operatically bloody ferocity of Sam Peckinpah. It's foul, it's vile, it's difficult to watch--and it's incredibly powerful and an unforgettable experience. And Zombie's never come close to it since. His entire filmmaking career seems to be an endless, circle-jerking tribute to 1986's THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2. His 2007 remake of HALLOWEEN is a disjointed fusion of his usual hicksploitation horror before shifting gears to became a condensed, pointless remake of the 1978 original, while the less said about his 2009 HALLOWEEN II, the better. 2013's THE LORDS OF SALEM was ultimately a misfire that lost its way as it devolved into sub-Jodorowsky shock imagery, but it had a weird '70s Satanism vibe going on, like 1973's MESSIAH OF EVIL if directed by Stanley Kubrick. It wasn't a success, but Zombie was at least making a concerted effort to work outside of his comfort zone for the majority of the film.
31 finds Zombie back in his comfort zone and on total autopilot. His 2003 debut, HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES (shot in 2000 and left in distribution limbo for three years), is a terrible movie but it at least has the excuse of being a debut. What's his excuse for 31? It's like an "extreme" version of his already "extreme" schtick, but his abilities seem to be regressing. He's so reliant on in-your-face shaky-cam and garish lighting (including a strobe-lit sequence) that a good chunk of the film is visually incoherent. And the plot? The same shit. It's set on Halloween 1976 and a bunch of hard-partying carnival workers who say "fuck" a lot are lured into the middle of nowhere to take part in "31." It's a MOST DANGEROUS GAME-type contest overseen by a trio of foppish Brits, dressed as grotesque aristocrats in powdered wigs and pancake makeup like they're going to a midnight showing of BARRY LYNDON: Father Murder (Malcolm McDowell), Sister Dragon (Judy Geeson), and Sister Serpent (Jane Carr). The five carnies--headed by Zombie's usual star, wife Sheri Moon Zombie as Charly--have to overcome unbeatable odds to survive the night as they face off against their opponents hellbent on slaughtering them. The killers are an increasingly ludicrous collection of ROAD WARRIOR rejects in clown makeup: Sick-Head (Pancho Moler), a demented little person in a Hitler stache and with a swastika painted on his chest; Psycho-Head (Lew Temple) and Schizo-Head (David Ury), a pair of chainsaw-wielding brothers; and the cartoonishly Germanic Death-Head (Torsten Voges) and the fetishist Sex-Head (E.G. Daily). Not all of the carnies make it, but once that initial lineup is defeated, Father Murder calls in his ace closer Doom-Head, a maniac prone to pretentious, philosophical Quentin Tarantino-esque monologues and played in a grating, headache-inducing fashion by Richard Brake in what might be 2016's most unbearable performance that will nonetheless inspire countless insufferable cosplayers at horror cons for the next decade.
Like Tarantino, Zombie has favorite cult actors he likes to use repeatedly--McDowell, Geeson, Daily, Meg Foster, Daniel Roebuck, and former porn star Ginger Lynn Allen have been in past Zombie films (Geeson came out of a decade-long retirement to co-star in THE LORDS OF SALEM)--and here he even gives us a prominent role for Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, best known as Sweathog Freddie "Boom Boom" Washington on WELCOME BACK KOTTER 40 years ago, here playing Panda, one of the doomed carnies. It's nice to see Hilton-Jacobs again, but it's too bad he's using an overdone Jamaican accent that renders most of his dialogue unintelligible. You'll wish more of the dialogue was unintelligible when you see Foster (as carny Venus Virgo) gesticulating around her crotch and saying "fucky fucky fucky, juicy juicy juicy, money money money" and witness this enlightening conversation between carny Levon (Kevin Jackson) and a cackling Sick-Head (note: transcription double-checked for accuracy):
A louder and somehow even more obnoxious HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES peppered with shout-outs to Tobe Hooper's THE FUNHOUSE, 31 is obviously intended for the Rob Zombie superfans and is more or less a greatest hits package, from the splattery violence to the endless vulgarity to resemblance of the "Heads" to Captain Spaulding and the Firefly clan to the ersatz Peckinpah WILD BUNCH freeze-frames and the opening credits featuring a Southern rock favorite (in this case, the James Gang's "Walk Away"). If you're one of the Rob Zombie gatekeepers, then you decided this "fuckin' ruled" before he even started filming. 31 is for you. Go enjoy yourself. You've seen it all before--and better--but hey, this is what you wanted.
PHANTASM: RAVAGER (US - 2016) Directed by David Hartman. Written by Don Coscarelli and David Hartman. Cast: Reggie Bannister, A. Michael Baldwin, Angus Scrimm, Bill Thornbury, Kat Lester, Gloria Lynne Henry, Dawn Cody, Stephen Jutras, Daniel Roebuck, Daniel Schweiger. (Unrated, 85 mins) Released in conjunction with PHANTASM: REMASTERED, a J.J. Abrams-funded 4K restoration of the 1979 original, PHANTASM: RAVAGER is the fifth and supposedly final entry in this beloved cult horror franchise, and the first since 1998's awful PHANTASM: OBLIVION. It's also the first not directed by series mastermind Don Coscarelli, who remains onboard as a producer and co-writer, with directing duties instead handled by veteran animator David Hartman, whose TV credits include episodes of TRANSFORMERS PRIME and the Disney Channel's MY FRIENDS TIGGER & POOH. Hartman also contributed some animated bits to Coscarelli's 2012 film JOHN DIES AT THE END and initially conceived for Coscarelli a series of short PHANTASM "webisodes" with stars Reggie Bannister and A. Michael Baldwin that were to air online. These were shot over 2012 and 2013 after numerous attempts by Coscarelli to get a fifth film rolling in the early 2000s never materialized, even after the significant critical acclaim and instant cult classic status of his 2003 film BUBBA HO-TEP. Hartman filmed enough PHANTASM webisodes that he and Coscarelli ultimately decided to piece them together into a feature-length film.
It's not exactly some kind of dubious chicanery since they were always upfront about the origin of PHANTASM: RAVAGER, but it also never manages to overcome the fact that it's a bunch of shoddy-looking, quickie vignettes that really don't hang together all that well. The focus is on Bannister's Reggie, who's first seen wandering around in the desert, taking back his beloved '71 Plymouth 'Cuda from the poor schmuck who stole it before he has the first of many run-ins with the lethal, flying silver spheres, the weapons of choice for diabolical villain The Tall Man (the late, great Angus Scrimm, who died nine months before the film's release). Reggie then finds himself in an old folks home, visited by Mike (Baldwin), who informs him that he's been diagnosed with dementia. Then Reggie's in a cabin in the woods that belongs to sexy hitchhiker Dawn (Dawn Cody), who's attacked by the spheres, and so on. Coscarelli and Hartman try to construct a story out of the tenuously-connected "webisodes" in which The Tall Man is manipulating Reggie and Mike over multiple timelines, dimensions, and often intersecting planes of existence. Mike tells Reggie of The Tall Man unleashing an "alien virus" as giant versions of the spheres hover over skylines of major cities, causing INDEPENDENCE DAY-type destruction.
Angus Scrimm (1926-2016)
If anything, the ideas that Coscarelli and Hartman put forth represent levels of ambition that are entirely too far beyond the reach of their budget. It looks exactly like a stitched-together series of cheap webisodes, and once Reggie and Mike find themselves in a post-apocalyptic wasteland (probably an idea held over from a discarded late '90s script by PULP FICTION co-writer Roger Avary, who was briefly attached to the never-filmed PHANTASM'S END) following The Tall Man's unleashing of the alien virus, the amateurish visual effects are only a notch or two above BIRDEMIC, with some embarrassing CGI fire that looked like shit when Albert Pyun was using it in the late '90s. PHANTASM: RAVAGER gets by for a while just on pure sentiment and nostalgia: Kathy Lester (now billed as "Kat Lester") returns as the Lady in Lavender from the 1979 original, Gloria Lynne Henry reprises her role from 1994's PHANTASM III: LORD OF THE DEAD, and even the most jaded cynic will smile at the first appearance of Bill Thornbury as Mike's older brother Jody. And there's the always-engaging Bannister and his four-barreled shotgun, and the emotional impact of seeing Scrimm, albeit far too briefly, reprise his iconic role one last time. But sentiment and nostalgia can only carry RAVAGER so far, especially when it starts feeling less like a fifth PHANTASM movie and more like a film student's adventures in PHANTASM fan fiction. Look, we all respect Don Coscarelli, a unique voice in genre cinema who shouldn't have to schlep this hard to get a green light. We all love Reggie Bannister and we all mourn the passing of Angus Scrimm, But we can respect and appreciate these cult movie legends without pretending PHANTASM: RAVAGER is good.
