From the visionary mind of the man who brought us House Of 1000 Corpses, The Devil's Rejects and Halloween comes the horrific story of five carnival workers who are kidnapped the night before Halloween and held hostage in a large compound. At the mercy of their captors, they are forced to play a twisted game or life or death called 31. For the next 12 hours they must fight for their lives against an endless parade of homicidal maniacs.

Rob Zombie, the man behind the madness, recently spoke with Fangoria about the film, which was release in September. Following is an excerpt from the interview:

Fangoria: How did 31 come to be?

Rob Zombie: "Well, 31 came to be out of my frustration of trying to get a movie called Broad Street Bullies made, which was a true life story about the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team. I’ve been working on it for two years and the project was just dragging and taking forever. One day, I was just frustrated and talking to my manager when I said, 'I could probably pitch a movie right now, off the top of my head and we could get it made tomorrow.' And I did; I just pitched the idea. I basically made up the idea for 31 on the spot and how we could sell that, and that’s how it came about.

Fangoria: In terms of the film’s content, what went into the decision to go for something more violent than something more visually visceral?

Rob Zombie: "The type of movie 31 became was logically dictated by the script and the story. Lords Of Salem was never meant to be a hyper-violent horror movie; I always thought of it as this drug trip dramatization. So 31 was always going to be a very in-your-face, physically violent movie from the start. I mean, that was the idea from the get go. So really the way I was going to approach it was always obvious, but we were makingLords Of Salem , I wanted to have a much slower pace, and in every account, from the performances to the camerawork, 31 was going to have a more hectic pace. That summer when I finished the script, I was envisioning it and that’s when I choose the style that I would shoot in."

Go to this location for the complete interview.

Official trailer:

On January 23rd, 31 made its world premiere at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. The clip below features Rob's introductory remarks and the complete Q & A session after the showing. Note that it contains spoilers:

31 stars Sheri Moon Zombie, Malcolm McDowell, Richard Brake, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, Jeff Daniel Phillips, and Meg Foster.