1) 31 (TBC)
After directing House of 1000 Corpses, The Devil’s Rejects, a couple of Halloween reboots, and The Lords of Salem, director Rob Zombie ventures into what he promises to be even more grisly territory with 31 – a film that pits five captured citizens against a set of murderous clowns. Set in the immodestly titled “Murder World,” the movie sets up a ‘kill-or-be-killed’ scenario, where participants are freed only if they survive for twelve hours. Aside from this brief premise and the promise of buckets of blood, Zombie is keeping his cards close to chest with 31, with production due to begin early this year.
Of course, not everyone is salivating at the prospect of 31. Indeed, Zombie’s blood-thirsty filmmaking touch has seen many of his movies receive distinctly mixed receptions from critics. Several have unsurprisingly condemned the gruesome violence of Zombie’s scripts, whereas others gave somewhat begrudgingly positive reviews to The Devil’s Rejects, a film that managed to simultaneously impress and appall them all at once.
If critics are undecided on Zombie, public support remains evidently strong given how his new film amassed its required budget through online crowd-funding. He threw up a bunch of sinister sketches on a website and promised that his new movie would be his most brutal yet, and the donations kept rolling in.
No matter what your opinion on the filmmaker, it’s difficult to argue that Zombie doesn’t provide the slasher movie with refreshing bite – and 31 has to be considered as one of the most highly anticipated films of the year for fans seeking something new and gruesome in 2015.