marcwiechmann Reviews

The Reef: Stalked (2022)

Ridiculously bad

[1/10 · 4 February 2023]

Okay. So, the protagonist sees her dead buddy in a bath tub. She didn't see her die, but she imagines her struggle, and from there she develops a trauma, making her panic whenever her face touches water, seeing those struggle sequence in her head that she never has seen. Whut, lul??

Of course next she goes open sea paddling with the sister of the dead friend who hates her, cuz that is what you do. 20 min in until anything happens, which, really, is nothing. The shark is only stock video snippets. You can tell the director had either no vision, no money or no talent. Or all of those. There is this shot they try, that is somewhat famous and should be terrifying, when a huge shark swims under the kajak, to show you how massive the shark is. But even this shot is bad, they had obviously not even a drone or sth, you just see a part of the kajak and a blurry shadow, hahaha, it's so bad omg. So, a shark movie with close to no shark. A plastic fin sometimes. Was a cheap plastic thing that they could not show in close up is my only logical explanation, cuz you never see it close, so the fin and the shark always look tiny. Even artificial blood seems to have been rare. The "blood water" looks like thin red soup, the wounds you see (only once) are made badly.

So, what is left? Bad acting, a ridiculously bad script and really unprofessional camera work.

You don't even get the satisfaction to see everyone die.

1 star still too much, do not waste your time with that.

The Disappointments Room (2016)

Eye Candy does not stop this movie from being an utter mess

[2/10 · 30 January 2017]

The Disappointments Room.

Do you know where that room is? It was my living room while watching this horrible excuse of a movie.

What the heck was the movie about at all?

And I knew it before. As you probably are just as big horror fans as I am, you know the golden rule: when there is a famous Hollywood actor / actress in it, the movie is bad. Really, really bad.

But I adore Kate Beckinsale (even though blonde is NOT a good hair colour for her...), so I wanted to give it a shot. And hey, there CAN be pleasant surprises when it comes to horror flicks with stars in it. Deliver Us From Evil, Mirrors, The Veil (but not for Alba, for T.Jane only!). It CAN work, so I was full of hope.

I shouldn't have been.

The movie is completely boring, from start to end. There is no "horror" in it. I mean, literally. The only scenes, that are supposed to be creepy, are flashbacks, nothing more. No jumpscares, no gore, no suspense, just plain nothing.

If Kate at least would have undressed, but nooooo, not even that.

The plot is confusing and has no start and no end - I heard important scenes got cut out of the movie (read the review of the extra from the movie's set), but even with all of them included it would still be a horrible movie.

Kate Beckinsale obviously did not receive enough money to bring in some effort, and the Frank Grillo clone could not catch that up for her.

The quality of course was good, perfect camera, light, sound, there was nothing left to be desired. But you can bet Kate Beckinsale does not work with people not knowing their technical jobs on set.

This must have been some contract work for Beckinsale, I cannot see why she participated in this mess of a movie. Or maybe she cannot get any more roles these days, since the success of "Underworld" lies far back in the past, and she does not get younger, I don't know. Whatever, just like me, she should have avoided this movie.

I could not even tell, what the movie really, really was about. Sure, there was this room where the rich people hid their ugly kids, fair enough. But why some - what? Ghosts? - haunt her now, and ONLY her but nobody else, I have no idea. What was it about that dude helping doing the repairs? Is he dead, or what? Was he real at all? He has to be, since her hubbie has seen him, right? And all those multiple scenes, where you see all actors in different roles? WTF?

As the title says: the movie is a complete and utter mess. It has no clear target to achieve, no character development at all, and more holes than plot.

The golden rule just got confirmed again. Avoid horror movies with big names in it. Give 20.000 bucks to some talented amateurs, and you will get way more entertaining horror flicks.

Put Beckinsale back in this black leather catsuit or let her play some RomCom, this is her only range as actress.

Please.

No More.

Recovery (VI) (2016)

Excellent start, ridiculous drift into the meaningless

[3/10 · 25 January 2017]

Oh man, I wanted to like this movie, I wanted it so much. The beginning was really, really promising. I got immediately interested in the characters and really wanted to know, what's going here. The actress of "Kim" is smoking hot, the actor of the "father" was really good, and I liked the nice little Sepia look of the start.

Too bad for me, because what is going on, will never be explained to any of us.

After very good two minutes (really, a dream start for every movie), this movie got cheesy, superficial and meaningless, not to say boring. The formula was visible at all times. There were some moments when I still hoped the movie will get back on line, but well, what can I say - you see my 3 star rating.

You see the pretty boy - you know he will die. This is not even a spoiler, it's just maths. You meet the pretty girl and know immediately something cannot be right. You see the smart ass brother and know he will survive. You see the house and have to wonder, why anyone should freely walk in there - or stay there, after finding the first strange and disturbing things.

But noooooo....

The main character was terribly annoying and way to "superior". Always cool, never panicking, seeing horrible stuff and still making jokes, tricking the bad guy with psychic manipulation within 20 seconds, and of course fighting like a trained MMA fighter. Absolutely with a funny oneliner on her lips in life endangering situations.

Ridiculous.

What did the family want? Why did they do, what they do? The most interesting and important part of the movie, but nothing gets explained or even shown. We just know okay, they do what they do. Why? Who cares, am I right? Basically the villains get 10 minutes screen time.

Until half of the movie I was still hoping something would happen. Once it passed the 45 minute mark I knew the 2nd half will be awful. And sadly I was right.

The ending was like the biggest letdown ever. It was illogical, it was stupid, and worst, it closed the circle to the beginning - from which we still don't know any meaning at all. So you are left with a really low movie, with horrible dialogues, mostly bad acting besides one or two exceptions ("father", "kim", "mother") and a terrible plot, where basically nothing happens.

This is also no horror movie, in the best case this is a thriller.

And not a good on.

Skip it.

Within (2016)

Good start, bad finish (or: how Within stole the idea from The Boy)

[4/10 · 23 January 2017]

Oh dear, what did I just see?

Before you continue: please be aware that by my comparisons in this review might include a spoiler for another movie !

"Within" (a.k.a. "Crawlspace") is the kind of horror movies, that start out quite well, but lose all their swing during the movie.

The alternative title "Crawlspace" basically gives it away right from the beginning. A family of three moves into a new house. From minute one there are noises from behind the walls and from the attic. Of course no one besides the teenage daughter hears it, and of course no one believers her, even though the whole city knows about some gruesome murders, that took place in the house just a few years ago. Never solved those murders, of course. When things start to happen in the house, the family shifts between thinking it may be the neighbor and totally ignoring everything. Horror business as usual, until the ridiculous and very obvious end.

The acting is okay - Michael Vartan is kind of a veteran and delivers. The mother was forgettable, but ah, Erin Moriarty is the star of the movie. She is young and hot and real eye candy, though her acting skills might be debatable. Also, it was a bit too much - was the director in love with her or something? Sometimes I really felt like a voyeur, who is just drooling all the time about this (in the movie) 17 year old teenage girl in underwear. She basically was all time in tight shirts, hot pants or panties. Don't get me wrong, I like to see cute girls in light clothing as much as every average male horror fan - but I don't like it if the movie centers around that. Underworld 2, anyone?

Everything, that MIGHT have become good in this movie, got lost after about half of the movie. Not only can you suspect what is happening right from the start, but the movie even solves up what is going on before the last third of the movie. From then things just get ridiculous. The murderer is suddenly kind of supernaturally strong and quick, there are two really horrible attempts at a "twist" (both fail horribly), and the finale of the movie is just badly executed and made me face palm.

Also, the base idea of the movie is - in my opinion - directly stolen from "The Boy", with the difference, that "The Boy" actually was a very decent movie, that got everything right, that "Within" could not do.

This movie did more feel like a student's project. For this, I would have rated it higher. But for a real attempt to succeed on the market, 4 stars are close to being too much. I give 2 stars for beautiful Erin Moriarty, one star for Michael Vartan and one star for the really good soundtrack. I am still singing "Are you alone now" while writing this review. Get the song, it's great.

If you don't expect anything and just wanna pass some time, while watching a pretty girl doing stupid stuff, then you will be okay with "Within".

If you have a certain level, that movies must not underpass, you should probably skip this one. Go and watch "The Boy", it's the better movie.

Morgan (2016)

No 'Ex Machina' - still worth a watch

[5/10 · 20 January 2017]

There are not many movies out from the "science fiction" genre out there, that are well done and worth a watch - "Morgan" tries very hard to be one of those. Although it does not entirely succeed, you can watch this one without being bored.

The acting is well done besides Kata Mara's performance. This might be subjective view, since I never liked Kata Mara at all. I think she is a very one dimensional actress, but well, that might be just my opinion. In this movie her performance is underwhelming, and also she gives away the "big twist" pretty early in the game by the way she acts. I don't wanna lie, I figured it out basically after 5 minutes, and I guess, so will you. This is what did cost "Morgan" 3 to 4 stars from the start.

It is filmed very well, I liked the cinematography, and I liked the soundtrack.

What I did not understand was why so many big names were wasted. Jennifer Jason Leigh was in it, Paul Giamatti was in it, Rose Leslie was there, Michelle Yeoh was in it. And they all get like two minutes of screen time and had no opportunity to shine. Well, Giamatti a bit maybe, if you like overacting a lot.

The movie, as other reviewers already stated, is very obviously a try to be "Ex Machina", but heavily lacking the smart charm and very good and thought through script of this exceptional movie. Still...I liked the idea of the movie, and I immediately routed for Morgan as a "person". So, as probably many of you guys will, I hoped all the time she will "win" and overcome the situation, but here we go again, it is no "Ex Machina". I hated Kata Mara's character, and the end was...meh. Not because of the idea, but because of the explanations, that you get in the end - they are the direct opposite of what you see on screen and make you questions the basic decisions of the company even more. But go and find out, maybe you will like it.

Also important: this is NOT a horror movie. This is an absolutely standard science fiction flick.

It had it's flaws but kept me fairly entertained for the entire runtime, so my vote is 5 out of 10.

Little Dead Rotting Hood (2016)

Fairly entertaining Werewolf movie

[6/10 · 15 December 2016]

This plot Oo :-D

Lady in the woods passes the crown to her granddaughter to become some kind of Zombie-Vampire-Werewolve-Buffy-Chick, so she can protect the small town from a supernatural evil, the Denmother. Why she had to be dead for that, who knows...

It felt like an over-length Buffy episode, and it showed the same trademarks - TV look, effects that change between super bad and surprisingly good, dialogues from hell, and a cast that is fairly talented. Especially Eric Balfour, this good old veteran, does his job just as good as he always does. Bianca A. Santos, the "Red Rotting Hood", did her job well, too. The rest was overacted mostly, but still okay.

Some of the Special FX were really bad, like the 3 guys changing into wolves - I've seen this done better by small YouTubers. Some other scenes were really cool though - the director knew what he had to do with a small budget and focused on key scenes done well. A fight in a small town, at night, with lots of trained animals, flame throwers, 30 or more extras, CGI - this is not easy ! The main antagonist effects (don't wanna spoil you guys !) were not state of the art (or time), but still looked good - you needa be fair here, this is not a 200 Million dollar Hollywood movie.

Also, finally a horror B-movie without any night scene problems. Not one single time I had to try hard to recognize anything in dark scenes - so, good job from the lighting and camera department !

The dialogues are the biggest weakness of the movie - they were bad, and I mean like, super bad. The actors tried their best, but some lines cannot be delivered in a good way, not even if Meryl Streep would say them.

Overall, the movie is totally okay. It is not art, it is not even a good movie in the pure meaning of the word. But it entertained me fairly, and if you look for a "brains out, amusement on" movie, this might be the one for you, especially if you like Werewolves or creature horror in general.

There is even a pretty awesome female nudity scene - oh my gosh, was that chick hot. Uff.

So, get it, guys, nothing wrong with "Little Dead Rotting Hood", maybe besides the stupid title. In general, I probably would not have taken the Red Riding Hood story as background, it was not needed. But however, again, nothing wrong with it.

Have fun, and beware of the Denmother.

Maybe keep your dog out of the room, the tons of animal noises might make him nervous ;)

The Bucks County Massacre (2010)

Senseless and boring Found Footage horror flick

[1/10 · 7 November 2016]

First of all, don't take the rating of, what is it now, 6.somewhat? - serious. This comes mainly from a handful of obvious fake reviews.

This is a cheap, very very cheap found footage indie horror movie, that has literally nothing to offer.

The first 50 minutes are filming a party. Yes, that's it. Absolutely nothing else happens than some early 20s people having a party. A pretty lame party, as it happens to be. The people are extremely unlikable and boring. They play guitar hero, sing with a guitar and talk. Like, the birthday party of a 12 year old.

After 50 minutes, something happens, which leads to some persons running back to the party, showing the rest of the gang what they just filmed. All watch it, in real time, and we see the reactions to the film material, that we just watched some minutes before.

Talking about recycling, huh?

After that, a lot of shaky hand camera stuff goes on. Until the end you hear some screaming, then it's finally over.

Sounds boring?

Sure it does, because it was!

The one and only thing that happened could have been avoided, if the guys from the party just stand together and beat the aggressor up. No one needed to die.

So, this is super lazy "storytelling" (there hasn't been really much of a "story), the characters are unlikable (and let's be honest here, butt ugly on top), you can't see anything, and nothing happens.

I totally see no reason why anyone should watch this. I love found footage movies and horror flicks, and I tend to honor the effort of making movies. But this? This was not a movie, and I cannot recommend it to anyone.

1/10, and only because you can't give 0.

Muck (I) (2015)

Not as bad as many reviews want to make you believe, plus tons of female nudity

[2/10 · 3 November 2016]

Boy, what a mess of a movie :-D But well, this is some private project, funded by Kickstarter crowdfunding - making a movie is tons of work, and not as easy as most people think, so I tend to giving the makers some credit for the effort. Sometimes. In case of „Muck", this argument won't help the horrible horrible movie getting any better.

So, as other reviewers did mention, besides the lack of any plot and several other things going on – we will talk about that just some lines later – there is a LOT of female nudity in this movie. A big lot, to be honest. And even if I as a dude have no problems with nudity, „Muck" sometimes seems to be more of a soft porn than a cheap horror flick. I enjoyed some scenes (the black haired super beauty at around 39 minutes, for NO reason randomly testing different underwear in the public restroom of a cheap bar? Stunning !), but they did not contribute anything at all to the movie. I think the director just translated his boob fixation in this movie – sometimes this gets flat out misogynistic. Example: after a danger situation a dude grabs the ass of a nice lady. She yells at him that he has no right to do so. His answer (ridicoulesness part 1): „I just saved that ass, so I touch it whenever the f*** I want to". Aha. HER answer (ridicoulesness over 9000:) „Ah, I hate when you make sense". This just threw back feminism 200 years. Fullscreen inserts on dancing ladies' assets during an attack scene? Sure, sex sells. And don't get me wrong: as a dude I was able to enjoy the view of nice silicon boobs, but if this, as questionable as this is, is the only good thing about a movie, then the movie sucks. I can watch porn if I want that and that only.

I have NO idea why the girls participate in this movie anyways – maybe it's some kind of a show reel for applications for soft porn roles?

So, what is the movie about at all?

It is basically a simple slasher horror movie about some teenagers (of course), who get hunted through the marshes in the beginning of the movie? Why, or by whom? No idea, and the movie does not tell a single thing about it. Plot synopsis says they had some bad experiences on a burial ground. Makes sense, I guess....uhm, besides the fact that at no time in the movie any graveyard is shown or even spoken about? Intro starts, more naked boobs. BOOBS ! (I liked the intro...)

So, finally there is a creepy, dark, abandoned house in the middle of the swamp, they of course make a rest here, and things go the usual way, eliminating the hateable characters. Fun side fact: the dude being injured BADLY, blood running from wounds, which for sure cover internal bleedings, keeps expressing his desire for getting drunk and getting laid by one of the sweet ladies. Sure. Close to death I usually think about boning some side chick. Understandable. What? Did I just say that? Also, where he got this wounds from? You will never know.

The „threat" in this movie is obviously some...cannibal cavemen covered in flour? That hunt there for like forever, but nobody ever heard about people keeping disappearing and getting brutally murdered? Also, WHY? They don't abduct them, don't rape them, don't eat them...they just kill, because the others are not so awesomely painted white? The passive aggressive version of the Blue Man Group in white colour? Where they come from, what they want, how the teens stumbled upon then? We will never know, the movie does not bother with „details" like this.

I had to laugh so hard at around 29 minutes though, when this girl is in the bath room after having a nice shower (because you want to die clean in such a situation and show off your rack!) to...black metal...from a bathroom radio? Yeah, while she is showering, there is some strip bar music, but when this ends and sound comes only from this little radio? Nineties black metal. What the heck? xD

Whatever, so what happens? She sees some dudes outside, doing...something? To someone? So, she wants to run out of the bathroom (after yelling to the...someone...who has to endure...something...by another someones, hundreds of yards away, through a closed window...?) and just falls. There is absolutely no reason why she should stumble at all. She just falls. LOL? I could not stop laughing for minutes. I would have loved if she would have just died by brain injury or whatever. But well, there will come a time for that...

Oh, another example of awesome screenplay writing? The most stupid male teenager goes for searching for help desperately and finds some bar, but is then having some shots and making selfies with some other girls, who of course also happen to be total lingerie models? He also tells NOBODY what happened, or that there are badly injured people, he does not call the police - but his party loving brother? Without telling him at all what this is about and only asking to pick him up? Everything is possible in "Muck". Even that drinking, sexist younger brother going full on Chuck Norris later, including semi-cool one liners. Ouch. I could slap this kid in a knockout, without leaving the couch or laying down the remote. Gosh, my little sister could do so.

Overall, this movie is bad acting, no plot, bad effects, bad choreography, bad lighting, and tons of boobs. Decide yourself, if huge amounts of naked skin make this laughable try of a movie worth to watch for you.

Anguish (2015)

Unusual, slow paced drama - not a horror movie !

[5/10 · 24 October 2016]

"Horror" is a well selling label, which is the reason, why many ambitious movies are labeled as horror movies despite being nothing like that - this old curse also hits "Anguish" and makes it being seen mostly by an audience, who will not take this slow little indie movie as a pleasure but will rather be disappointed.

I don't want to hide that I am part of just this audience.

Looking for a small, chilling ghost / possession movie I stumbled about "Anguish" with little to no expectations and no idea about what the movie will be in detail.

Starting the movie, I was immediately annoyed by "Lucy", but well, things take a certain turn here...late, we are introduced to "Tess", who, in all honesty, is at least as annoying as Lucy, if not more. I see what the directors tried - they wanted to paint an introverted, troubled character, but I am not sure if this wouldn't have played out better if they didn't try to show an annoying teenager but a sensitive, unusually calm kid or something...but well.

The story basically is about a girl, that gets possessed by the spirit of another girl - without spoilers, if you read my review this far, you can probably figure out who gets possessed by whom.

If you expect a possession horror movie, some exorcism, creepy stuff, moving things and whatever there might be out there in the huge horror movie portfolio, than forget that. "Anguish" is 95 % very low paced drama about how the mothers cope with the situation - the girl(s) is/are surprisingly unsurprised (no pun intended) by the situation. I mean, hey, getting possessed by some dead girl is pretty refreshing if you live in a boring small town, eh?

So, that's it. Basically nothing more happens during the entire movie. Two annoying girls, two a very little bit less annoying mothers, and some drama about why things have to be this way, until the movie finals in a, well, it's not even a twist, I'd say it's the end you will expect from minute one, if you ever have seen any horror movie, despite the fact "Anguish" isn't such.

I can give some points for the fairly nice soundtrack, the okay acting of the female lead girl, the atmosphere and the one scene, that gets supernatural finally (even though this scene does not make any sense at all - they just wanted to have it in the movie for showing off some shift/tilt effects, I assume). The result of this scene finals in the mentioned "twist" and does not match with the scene. At all. I'd basically describe that as a continuity mistake.

So, can I recommend? For my personal taste, I can not, unfortunately. I appreciate the efforts of independent film makers, and I understand they tried to mix up rather suspense than horror with drama elements. And hey, I can be fan of this - Carrie, Babadook and others show that this walk on a red line can be done. Anguish fails to place itself amongst those examples and can thus not be recommended - at least not if you have to pay for it. If your preferred VoD portal has it offered for free, you can take a look.

The Pack (2015)

Unoriginal movie with extremely illogical character behavior

[3/10 · 24 October 2016]

Oh my...and it started so promising...50.000 people die every year by wild dog attacks (I know - crazy number, isn't it?!), so I thought, "yeah, a movie about that might be interesting !".

And I indeed am a fan of animal horror, and I can understand, that it's not easy to make a movie about this. The animals need to be trained well, and a lot of Special FX is necessary.

This having in mind, I could not enjoy "The Pack" - at all.

What did bother me most, were two things: the characters would just have needed to call the cops and wait things out behind a locked door. Pretty easy so far. And IF, I say IF, they wanted to go out - never heard of fire? Build a torch, scare the dogs away, go your way in freedom and safety.

When I watched "The Pack", I seriously was happy, that this family was not part of the app. 10.000 people, that once carried out the DNA legacy of Homo Sapiens, because we would have died out as species.

Also, of course no mobile or even radio / Walkietalkie will work on the farm? Wow, Dudes, this is not "Amityville". When the landlines, radios and mobiles did work in the afternoon, they will work after dark as well.

I know, I know - people do dumb stuff in horror movies, and getting no signal is part of the basics, and sometimes it just has to be that way to tell the story, I get this and usually am okay with it.

But in "The Pack" these points are too important for me personally to not dislike the movie completely ignoring it. Come on, they could have made a "twist" that the dogs origin from house dogs and thus are not afraid of fire or whatever...the way it was solved here is just lazy storytelling.

"Hey, couldn't the family like, use some torches or so to scare the pack away?" "I don't believe in fire...only in the great C'tulhu!" "Uhm, I don't think this will be a proper explanation for..." The Great C'tulhuuuuuuu!"

Also, why should the dogs stop attacking in Daylight, when they think they cornered their prey? It's not werewolves, only dogs...

Also, the characters stay superficial and pale, I was not at all interested in them or if they survive the night. The acting was average, but the problem was the character design, not the actors. As viewer you stay completely uninterested, and nothing is done to wake your interest. Also, with a family of 4, you can imagine who will survive...

The father is downright stupid, by the way. The bank tells him he will lose everything. Next sentence from him to his wive is, they will never lose the farm? Come one - the bank accountant literally told you the exact opposite just minutes ago, and she sat next to you. What's wrong with you, bro?

Also, they are like, cattle owners, and in the beginning of the movie totally nobody was surprised to find dead sheep, obviously torn in pieces by wolves or bears or whatever. So, no one ever expects wolves or bears, despite no one is surprised to find their victims? So, they know the animals are there, but they don't care and protect themselves in any way? Everyone just wanders out in the dark wilderness without being properly armed? Because don't mind that bear, if it comes, they will...what? Hug it out?

Sorry, but I can't give this more than 2 of 10 points, for me it was a huge disappointment. I give one point for the dog training and one point for the nice low key lighting. Oh, I liked the song in the end credits...at least something, eh?

Can't recommend. Watch "Backcountry" for good animal horror and leave this one in the cheap DVD box.

31 (2016)

Another Zombie Letdown

[5/10 · 19 October 2016]

As so many others, I too was excited about "31" and could not wait to finally watch it. Maybe it was that high expectations, that was part of my disappointment, but I am not willed to explain everything that was wrong in the movie with that premise.

I have to say, before I write about the movie itself, that I never shared the opinion of those, who see Rob Zombie basically as the horror messiah, who will reinvent the genre. He basically had 2 good movies (Devil's Rejects, Halloween), all other movies were pretty bad. House of 1000 Corpses was a ridiculously bad B-movie, Halloween 2 was bad even for a film school student, and those few parts that were good in Lords of Salem were copied from other movies. First Halloween reboot was only good, because he had a rich franchise with tons of information to build on.

He gets the look every time, I'll give him that, and I won't even make fun about how a grown up man calls himself "Zombie", but the content of his movies is a major letdown every single time. I'd never thought to say this, but in terms of innovative horror movies, I prefer Eli Roth before Zombie every day.

Rob is an awesome musician, and yes, maybe even a good director. But he is an horrible screenplay writer with no idea how to develop characters and dialogues. No wonder, all characters in "31" are superficial clichés with no debt, talking horrible stupid stuff, that is meant to sound smart. The "Doomhead" being so obviously being a Heath Ledger's Joker tribute just confirms that. Basically the most interesting character in the movie is a (bad) rip-off. And did he really need the slo-mo clap? That was so bad, I was close to turn off the TV.

Also,he really should stop to cast his wife for every female lead. If not married to him, she would never have become an actress, at least not in a main role. I don't care if she is hot (I by the way don't think so, she is SO skinny and looks old for her age), I care about acting skills.

Maybe, if Rob could direct a movie with a screenplay written by an experienced and talented writer...? But this way, letting him do whatever he wants, we get movies like "31".

So, the protagonists get abducted and sent into an Arena, to fight to death with some clowns with freaky names (Doomhead, Deathhead, Bashhead, and so on...). That's pretty much all, no more exposition or plot details. Why? No idea, and the movie does not care about explaining anything - being sick is basically it's only excuse and motivation. "Why do they do this?" "Because they have sick minds". "Aha. And why does Doomhead what he does? Does he get paid BIG time?" "Ah, he is sich minded". "What is special about Doomhead at all? To me does not look any more dangerous than the rest of the freaks?" "Ah, he is even sicker as them". And so on. A few freaky characters get shown, some people die, mainly by blade weapons, until an, in my opinion, pretty stupid ending.

Okay, there is some gore in the movie, which I appreciated. I did like the characters, even if superficial - but this made the movie even worse, because you are interested - but don't get any answers or backgrounds.

I also liked the Soundtrack a lot, I love all this 60s and 70s music, and it blended in nicely.

But the overall execution was just bad - ridiculous fighting choreographies, that gave me the impression, everything in this movie was filmed by first take (maybe they wanted to proudly say that they shot the movie in 31 days or something like this), especially the text passages of Sheri Moon Zombies. Man, stop letting her talk - no expression, no motivation, no acting. At all.

So, what can I say? I give 4/10, 4 points for having interesting characters (who never get developed in any way), a good soundtrack, some gore and a good colour correction).

But can I recommend this? Gosh, no, I cannot.

I have still hope for Rob Zombie, and I will see his next movie. But if this will be bad again, I am out of the Zombie business, because by then he will have delivered 3 bad movies in a row - in my world more than enough to lose my respect permanently.

Sorry, Zombie fans - I know you have another opinion and will probably flame me, but this is my personal view. In my eyes, "31" is a disappointing letdown. There could have been so much more, this could have been such a good movie. But for that another director or at least screenplay writer would have been necessary.

Maybe next time.