MovieChat Forums > 31 (2016) Discussion > Pros and cons

Pros and cons

posted 8 years ago by alirioaguero2
7 replies | jump to latest

Pros:

- Premise is griping enough, so even if done to death by this point, still is interesting to watch.

- Being fast-paced gives you no time to get bored or to stray away.

- The visuals are consistantly revolting. Anyone coming here for the NC-17 rating should be pleased.

- Characters are cool, they have an unique look to them and you can see action figures with them, especially with Doom-head.

- Casting older actors to play the victims. Teens (or people around 30 passing as teens) are overused in this genre and I am sure many actors in 40-80 age range are thrilled when they can still get an opportunity to be chased down by a maniac with a chainsaw.

- They know this is a horror/torture porn and they don't force-feed us with morals or preechieness at the end.

Cons:

- There is little to no context. Who are these people? In what kind of relationship are they? What exactly do they do with that van? What kind of entertainment do they do? Who are the villains? Why are they doing the 31? For fun, money or they have a different plan? Who won the bet? How do they find the killers? I am not saying film had to explain ALL of these, but EITHER the victims or the villains should have been more explored.

- Speaking of; little to no character development or real personality to either of the characters. Just because they would make a cool action figures doesn't mean I get or care who they really are. Movie's fast-paced nature also doesn't give us time to meet anyone or to care of their fate.

- The victims started killing the villains with such glee I wonder was that their first time? The movie never explains.

- The editing was uneven. What's up with that?

[–] VivienCastro 8 years ago

Spot on, and I really appreciated your point about older actors which I also enjoyed seeing.

In Devil's Rejects for instance, the Firefly family was a great immersion. Here, Doomhead and some of the main characters were interesting but didn't manage to have the same hold of me. Doomhead probably came the closest. Yeah, they were all cool and I even liked the acting, they seemed genuine, but something just fell short. Like there was a suggestion of stories behind the main story but everything happened too fast for the viewer to get anything more tangible from them. I am all for subtlety but this was more void of content than subtle.

[–] bishop-69757 8 years ago

Nothing to really add but I agree with both of you. I'd rate the movie like a 5 maybe 6 out of 10 but Rob proved with The Devils Rejects that he can do better.

[–] ElectricWarlock 8 years ago

Pros:
-I liked seeing how the characters changed as they were forced to deal with these maniacs. At the beginning they were sort of vulgar and constantly insulted each other left and right. But when the "you know what" started to hit the fan, we were able to see them come together and realize how much they did care about each other underneath it all.

-I think the idea of wealthy people taking a bunch of everyday people and using them as guinea pigs for evil purposes is scary. They see them nothing more as toys. I'm into conspiracy theories such as the Illuminati and I couldn't help but think of them while watching this film, wondering if things like this really happen. There are lots of people who go missing and are never found again so it's possible. I don't think it's a coincidence the all seeing eye was spray painted on a wall.

-Meg Foster's performance. She was the highlight of the film. I think she took on a motherly role towards all the characters. She seemed like a good person and I was sad to see her go.

Cons:
-The shaky camerawork. At times I had a difficult time telling what was going on.

-The ending. It wasn't really an ending at all.

[–] 8 years ago

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[–] ElectricWarlock 8 years ago

I wouldn't be too surprised if he did. If he does I wonder what his intentions would be in including it, though. Perhaps trying to warn us? Or as a way to pay homage to them?

[–] 8 years ago

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[–] ElectricWarlock 8 years ago

If the Illuminati control everything, odds are they control the justice system as well. Like I said before, there are lots of people who've gone missing and not even a trace of them has been discovered. That's what Rob said inspired this movie, a statistic he read that Halloween is the one day of the year when he most people go missing. It sort of makes you wonder. Maybe 31 isn't completely fictional.