Okay, so by now you should know that what makes Rob Zombie movies bad is the very thing that makes them good. 31 is the filmmaker’s sixth frightener and it centers on a group of carnival performers abducted on Halloween and made to play a twisted game of survival for the entertainment of eccentric old rich people.

The abducted are an ethnically mixed bunch, but share one trait… they’re not likable. They say funny shit at times and have an undeniably tight bond, but to an outsider watching them on the movie screen the idea of hanging out with these folks would be like visiting with meth heads … while sober.

Watching these peeps die won’t bring a tear to your eye so if there’s anything worthwhile about their ordeals and death it would have to be based on the creativity of the kills. Unfortunately, the editing on 31 blows donkey dicks. It’s choppy and disorienting to the point you have no idea what’s happening and to whom.

We’re sure the dizzying editing was necessary to suggest ultra-violence but maintain a safe R rating, but it’s a scene killer. 31 is the kind of flick that would benefit tremendously from visibly creative death scenes. And, regardless of one’s opinion of Zombie’s movies, the man has a sharp eye for beautiful and frightening imagery, and you see it in everyone of his films, including quieter moments in 31.

But, enough griping. 31 is still a fun ride because what makes a Zombie movie bad is exactly what makes it good. The very traits that make his protagonists unlikable and expendable make for frightening and memorable villains. Why? Because people like that do exist. Zombie didn’t make them up, he just celebrates them. We’ve all seen them at Walmart, the DMV, during an ER visit, even at the Rob Zombie rock show.

We hate them because they’re obnoxious and don’t give a fuck about imposing on your comfort levels. We’re scared of them because there’s no reasoning with a vile bug. The threats they spit are menacing and real. They want to fight. They’re on drugs and, if not, well, that’s even scarier. Now, imagine them with hatchets, guns, and chainsaws.

Richard Brake as Doomhead is the standout here, an angry and sadistic piece of shit with a grin so evil and frightening it will take days to shake it out of mind (we’re still tormented). No offense to Brake, who we’re sure is a sweetheart, but his mouth and teeth are horrific here and when he bares his toothy grin it’s far scarier than the Xenomorph in Alien!

Brake’s got swagger too and with his clown makeup caked on his performance calls to mind Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight and makes us wonder what he’d achieve in that iconic role. We’re so blown away by Brake, we’ve looked at his past roles and discovered he’s played the original (and best) Night King on HBO’s “Game of Thrones” and murdered little Bruce Wayne’s parents in Batman Begins.

Brake does get a run for his money from Chilean actor Pancho Moler, portraying pint-sized Argentinian Nazi enthusiast Sickhead. Moler is a find and a total scene stealer. Watching him torment Sheri Moon Zombie’s Charly is the kind of fun one feels guilty about. He’s what PC folks call a “little person,” but really he’s just a murderous midget prick with a fanciful Hitler mustache.

Doomhead and Sickhead are just two of the homicidal clowns featured in 31. There are other colorful killers, each sent in alone or in pairs to hunt and slaughter the abductees inside a cavernous factory. The game lasts 12 hours. Anyone left alive when time is up wins! There’s no history or explanation for the game, allowing viewers to make up their own if need be.

31 plays like a mashup of films – The Purge, The Running Man, SAW, The Most Dangerous Game, Texas Chainsaw Massacre – but it’s worth a watch and ranks pretty high among Zombie’s movies, trailing behind the excellent Devil’s Rejects and his visual masterpiece Lords of Salem.

A trailer has gone online for Farren Blackburn’s Shut In, a supernatural thriller starring Naomi Watts as a child psychologist tormented by the spirit of the young troubled boy (Jacob Tremblay) she adopted and carelessly allowed to die in a storm.

Her shrink (Oliver Platt), however, believes she’s suffering a psychotic break triggered by the trauma experienced from losing her husband in an automobile accident that also left her teen son comatose. In fact, there may be no boy at all.

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A new trailer for Rob Zombie’s 31 has gone online ahead of its Sept. 1 Fathom Events premiere. Set on Mischief Night, the notorious evening before Halloween when abductions are commonplace, the film follows five kidnapped carnies forced to play a 12-hour game of life and death with murderous clowns.

Cast is made up of Sheri Moon Zombie, Jeff Daniel Phillips (“Westworld”), Meg Foster (They Live), Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs (”Welcome Back Kotter”), Richard Brake (Hannibal Rising), and Malcolm McDowell. 31 opens wide on Sept. 16.

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MTV reality star and anal sex queen Farrah Abraham stars in the indie serial killer drama Adam K. Set for a Halloween release on Blu-ray and DVD, the film follows a mild mannered auto insurance claims manager as he goes on a murderous rampage against those who have rejected his friendship.

Abraham came to fame on MTV’s teen exploitation reality shows “16 and Pregnant” and “Teen Mom.” She gained further notoriety taking porn star James Deen up her ass in the Vivid releases Farrah Superstar: Backdoor Teen Mom and Farrah 2: Backdoor and More. No word on what role she plays here.

Adam K. is written and directed by Joston Theney and co-stars scream queens Brinke Stevens (Teenage Exorcist), Mindy Robinson (VHS 2), Sarah Nicklin (Haunting of Alice D.), Arielle Brachfeld (Chemical Peep), Kristin Wall (Night of the Living Dead: Reloaded), and Jessica Cameron (Silent Night).

Relativity Studios has released a trailer for Kidnap, an abduction thriller starring Halle Berry as the mother of all road ragers while in pursuit of the degenerate that’s kidnapped her five-year-old son. In theaters Dec. 2, the film is directed by Spanish filmmaker Luis Prieto (Pusher) and penned by Knate Gwaltney.

Kidnap is now on our must-see list. The film looks like Ransom on wheels. It also calls to mind Speed and Breakdown. It just looks like a blast and, if you imagine a loved one taken in a similar manner, it’s what you’d hope you’d have the balls to do. Oh, and Berry is always at her best when kicking ass.

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Relativity Media has released a trailer for its Kate Beckinsale supernatural thriller The Disappointments Room. The film is directed by D.J. Caruso (Disturbia) from a script by “Prison Break” star turned screenwriter Wentworth Miller (Stoker).

The Disappointment Room stars Beckinsale as a mother who moves with her husband and child into a country manor in an old Eastern seaboard town. In the attic, she meets the ghost of little girl who beckons her to open a locked room. It opens in theaters Sept. 9.

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Lionsgate released today a new international trailer for The Blair Witch, a sequel to the groundbreaking granddaddy of found footage frighteners The Blair Witch Project. Helmed by Adam Wingard (You’re Next), the film is scaring up rave reviews and has original Blair Witch director Eduardo Sanchez’s thumbs up.

The Blair Witch follows James (James Allen McCune) and a group of his college friends into Maryland’s feared Black Hills Forest in search of his sister, Heather, who disappeared there in 1994 while shooting a documentary on the legend of the Blair Witch.

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Paramount Pictures released today a first trailer for its second full-length sequel to its horrifying 2002 blockbuster The Ring. The new film is titled Rings and is directed by Spanish filmmaker F. Javier Gutierrez (Before the Fall).

Rings shares the title of the 2005 Jonathan Liebesman (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) short film bridging The Ring and The Ring 2, both starring Naomi Watts. In the short, cults called Rings have emerged and challenge each other to watching the cursed videotape.

Gutierrez’s Rings stars Italian actress Matilda Lutz as a woman desperately trying to save her boyfriend after he gets caught up in “a dark subculture surrounding a mysterious videotape said to kill the watcher seven days after he has viewed it.”

If Rings draws inspiration from the short, we could have something really fun here. Regardless, it’s exciting to see Samara again! She comes for you Oct. 28.

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As Warner Bros. hits rough waters with the departure of Fan Bingbing (X-Men: Days of Future Past) from its shark thriller Meg, Li Bingbing (Resident Evil: Retribution) provides the production with a lifeline, coming on board to star alongside Jason Statham and Jessica McNamee (Loved Ones).

Based on the 1997 Steve Alten novel “Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror,” the film follows a former Navy captain and deep sea diver (Statham) attempting to rescue scientists trapped deep in the Pacific’s Mariana Trench with a prehistoric 70-foot Megalodon shark.

Li Bingbing is coming off The Nest, the biggest budgeted Chinese and Australian co-production ever. She’s best known for playing Ada Wong in Resident Evil: Retribution and Transformers factory CEO and martial artist Su Yueming in Michael Bay’s Transformers: Age of Extinction.

“Ash vs Evil Dead” is now available on Blu-ray and DVD. The Starz original series serves as a love letter for fans of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead films and as an introduction for newcomers to one of horror’s most beloved and buffoonish icons: Ashley J. Williams, the onetime Michigan State University student turned unlikely demon slayer, played with brilliant and enthused bravado by Bruce Campbell.

Picking up 30 years after Ash last defeated the Deadites, the show opens with the aging lothario wrestling a girdle around his belly, prepping to pick up barflies at the local watering hole. Aside from packing on the extra pounds, Ash remains the same cock-sure, non-repentant frat-boy he’s always been. The kind of guy that would read from the Book of the Dead to impress a potential conquest.

During a marijuana enhanced make-out session with a trailer park poet, he recites a passage from the Necronomicon and unleashes a new plague of demonic forces upon humanity. Ash has fought and survived demonic possession, self-mutilation, time travel, all kinds of ugly and unholy beasts, and the dismemberment of his girlfriend at his own hands, but he just can’t conquer common sense.

Thankfully, he’s got some help to save the world this go-around, namely his ValueShop department store co-workers, Pablo Simon Bolivar and Kelly Maxwell, and disgraced Michigan State Trooper Amanda Fisher. Pablo, endearingly played by Ray Santiago, is Ash’s loyal sidekick, a courageous and big-hearted soul who believes Ash is “El Jefe,” the man his shaman uncle prophesied would save humanity from evil.

Kelly, played with sass and heart by Dana DeLorenzo, doesn’t hold Ash in such high regard. Dismembering her estranged mother during a family reunion doesn’t help matters either (she was a Deadite). But, it’s Ash and Pablo who not only rescue her from the mind demon, Eligos, but help her overcome the  much more personal demons that have plagued her young life.

One of the joys of “Ash vs. Evil Dead” is watching Ash show some heart. Sure, he remains selfish and crass, but he’s got friends he genuinely cares about and a unexpected love interest in Amanda, who initially believed Ash was responsible for the inexplicable event that forced her to kill her partner (yup, Deadite) in a frightening scene in the pilot episode hinting at the gory good times to come. Their relationship is fun, tumultuous, and in the end, regrettably, tragic.

Together, this group of misfits head back to the cabin where Ash first faced off against the Evil Dead three decades ago for an outrageous and violent showdown that unbelievably tops the gang’s gleefully gruesome journey to get there. It’s impossible to watch this series and not smile. Thoughtfully crafted, each episode presents tributes to the original films while expanding the story of the world’s most reluctant hero.

“Ash vs. Evil Dead” is available as a two-disc set on Blu-ray and DVD and includes the featurettes “Inside the World of Ash,” “How to kill a Deadite,” and “Best of Ash.” All three present insightful looks at the making of the show, but are on the short side – a huge bummer for a show so extraordinarily produced. However, there is one bonus that saves the day: audio commentaries for all episodes, revealing some awesome insight from creators/producers Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert, Bruce Campbell and more.