We have learned a bit more about Rob Zombie’s latest project 31. First, we discovered that the project has already headed into production and second, we have also learned that Malcolm McDowell will be appearing in the film as Father Murder. McDowall runs Murder World alongside Sister Dragon.
McDowell will join previously announced cast members Judy Geeson (The Lords of Salem), Daniel Roebuck (Phantasm: Ravager), Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs (Otis), and more.
We recently reported that like most of Zombie’s work, the film will be heavily influenced by the horror of the 1970s–it will also be set in 1975. The film zeroes in on five people kidnapped in the days prior to Halloween. They are brought to a place called Murder World where they must fight for their survival by playing a game called 31. To win, the ‘contestants’ must kill their opponents over a 12-hour period. Their adversaries are comprised from a group of killer clowns.
As you already know, Zombie opted for crowd-funding to secure financing for the project. Contributors to the campaign had the opportunity to secure a walk-on role in the film, get their hands on an advance copy of the script or score props from previous Zombie films, and more.
The title refers to Halloween–the 31st day in October. Zombie has been touting it as a killer clown picture and has suggested that it will be nasty and brutal. He has cited his reasoning for choosing to crowd fund the project as a lack of interest from studios in financing the kind of films he wants to make. Zombie has suggested that films like The Devil’s Rejects would never get approved for studio funding in today’s filmmaking climate.
We will keep you apprised as more information becomes available.