10/12: Double Feature! 31 and Jigsaw

I've gotten a bit backed up, but here's the double feature the wife and I watched yesterday: 31 and Jigsaw.

31

Why do I keep subjecting myself to Rob Zombie movies? Why? Like I have some sort of horror movie amnesia I come back, movie after movie, expecting that the man can actually figure out how to make something watchable. Sadly, Zombie is evidently incapable of making good horror (The Devil's Rejects aside) and 31 is as worthless an example as the majority of his movies that came before.

There is literally no point in giving you the plot of this mess because there really isn't one, but here goes. Carnies drive down the road. Carnies get attacked by mystery clown goons. Carnies get taken to a murder game led by Victorian-haired Malcolm McDowell for some reason. Carnies get slowly killed by different murder clowns straight out of a bad video game. One carnie (kind of) escapes. Roll credits. Go home wishing you watched a better movie.

I just saved you two hours. Thank me later.

Here is how I imagine Zombie came up with the idea for this pathetic hunk of crap:

"Welp, time to make a new movie! What should I make... Hey, ya know what I liked growing up? Exploitation movies. I should make one of them. People seem to be afraid of clowns, too. I'll shoehorn a bunch of them in. Oh, and you know what the kids seem to like these days? That there Hunger Games movie! I'll make one of them too, why the hell not. AND. You know what my fans seemed to really like? That House of 1000 Corpses movie I made! I'll just remake that. Now, how to get this masterpiece made... Eureka! I'll bill it as the original movie I've always wanted to make that those durn Hollywood stuffed shirts haven't let me do, and I'll make my fans pay for it! We've struck pure gold here, Sheri my dear. And of course you'll be the lead, that goes without saying. You can't act for crap, but I got your back, babe."

Gold, I say! GOLLLLLDDDDDD!!!!!

If that sounds like the most unoriginal mess of a movie imaginable, well, that's because it is. I don't know who likes Zombie's movies or why, but 31 is nothing more than a gory bunch of references that Zombie can't pull together into anything cohesive. It's trying desperately and failing to be a classic exploitation film and at the same time is nothing more than a retread of what Zombie has done before. Everything feels fake and contrived, from the sets (everything seriously looks like a cheap haunted house attraction complete with dollar store strobe lights and fog machine) on down. What I think Zombie fails to realize is that when the violence and gore are wall to wall, with nothing substantive in between, it loses any impact or scare factor. This movie is boring, which is saying something for a movie involving chainsaw-wielding Nazi clowns (seriously, how overdone is the Nazis-are-evil-so-I'll-throw-a-swastika-on-this-guy-to-make-you-hate-him trope? Or the clowns thrown in for no good reason trope either). 

The only shining light for this steaming turd is the main villain, the unstoppable (except by poor time keeping) Doom-Head played by Richard Brake. I'll hand it to Zombie: he cast Brake in a perfect role here. His soliloquy during the first few minutes of the movie actually gave me hope that 31 might be a good movie (what a fool I was) and when he shows up again toward the end it pulled me out of banging my head out of sheer boredom. Brake makes a helluva creepy psychopathic killer in Doom-Head, and the last scene as he stares down the final victim gave me genuine creeps. Maybe Zombie should just hand the character over to someone who can actually string together a movie so they can do something with him. A Doom-Head slasher is actually something I'd watch.

Well, Mr. Zombie, I guess I'll see you the next time you make a movie. I'll come back full amnesiac, watching whatever pure awfulness you feed me and complain about it on the other side. We've got the relationship here, buddy.

3/10

Jigsaw

The other film of tonight's double feature was the Saw franchise kinda reboot, Jigsaw. John Kramer is back to his old hijinks, this time from beyond the grave, teaching people important life lessons. Like a serial killer Mr. Rogers, for example. 

Mr. Kramer's Neighborhood. PBS, get on picking this up. The kiddos will love it.

I've made no secret of my love of the Saw franchise, even despite their severe decline in quality after the second one, but mostly after the first one. Even if the movies weren't good as each installment went on they were still a fun murderfest to have every October. That said, I was pretty ok when they put the limping shell of a franchise out of it's misery after Saw 3D in 2010. Lionsgate, the company that produced all the Saw movies, decided to kill the franchise until an idea that was good enough came along to release another. Supposedly Jigsaw is that idea, and I gotta tell ya, I struggle to see how.

Jigsaw is, in every sense of the word, run of the mill. For what was billed as the idea that rejuvenated the franchise, it's surprisingly bereft of anything original. The traps are all pretty much traps we've seen before and the twists at the end feel contrived and unsurprising, especially in light of the abundant similar twists that existed in the previous films. Plus, and maybe this is why the Saw franchise has experienced diminishing returns, nothing will ever match the surprise of seeing John Kramer, the dead body we had seen the entire movie, get up off the ground in the first Saw. In comparison, the Jigsaw twist just pales, and leaves you with the feeling that they're trying to recapture something that just can't be recreated.

Ultimately, Jigsaw isn't a bad film, it's just nothing we haven't seen before. After 7 years between Saw movies that's not enough and Jigsaw feels like a forgettable imitation.

6/10