There were some bloody moments but not as many as I would’ve expected from a movie with a premise on surviving 12 hours against assassins in a closed in space. The lack of the clown feel just left me a bit disappointed after the hype the poster built up. I would say EG Daily was as close as it got. The “clowns” were missing the personality, the costume, the setting, really just kind of everything that makes a clown a clown. Tossing on a little grease paint and a wig doesn’t make you a clown, it makes you a guy in grease paint and a wig. If you are wondering how clowns play into this film, they don’t really. If that isn’t The Running Man, I don’t know what is. As each assassin is killed, another is introduced and the odds are recalculated. They are then introduced to their first assassin, a little person dressed like Adolph Hitler named Sick Head (Pancho Moler). They wake up, spread out through the facility, with weapons to defend themselves. Each person is given a number and odds of survival. Then they are chained up inside a factory and told about the game 31 by Malcolm McDowell who plays a rich psychopath who makes bets with Judy Geeson and Jane Carr on who will survive the night. They are traveling to their next show on Halloween when they are stopped by scarecrows in the middle of the road and, when they try to move them, they are attacked and kidnapped by men in masks. This was very much like the scene in House of 1000 Corpses when Otis and Tiny attack the car and kidnap the group of friends. Now, in the Q&A session after the film, Zombie specifically said that this film was NOT The Running Man, but any way you spin it, that’s what it was.ģ1 starts out with a group of carnies in a van, much like Spaulding, Baby and Otis in Rejects. If you can imagine that Banjo and Sullivan from The Devils Rejects had never gone to the Kahiki Palms Motel, but instead were kidnapped and thrown into The Running Man, that was 31. The poster alone was scary enough to ensure that the film would be 100% funded as it led us to believe that the film would be about clowns. We were presented with a simple poster of a clown face on a black background and given the premise of the film: Five people would be kidnapped and put inside a game where they had to survive for 12 hours. It was two years ago that fans were given the opportunity to financially back Rob Zombie’s new project, 31. I am fully aware of that fact and can admit that his films are fallible as well. Does this mean I don’t understand that he is fallible? No. I have defended his films for over a decade, even when my opinion caught me a lot of grief. I enjoyed Halloween II for the brutality of the film and I liked The Lords of Salem because I read the book and appreciated that he was trying something different. In fact, I have seen every one of his films on opening night, even driving hours to see The Lords of Salem. I have been a fan of Rob Zombie’s films ever since House of 1000 Corpses.