After spending years spent pumping out several Saw films, turning Repo! The Genetic Opera into a modern-day Rocky Horror Picture Show and remaking horror thriller Mother’s Day, you'd think that director Darren Lynn Bousman might be ready to take a break and work on something about rainbows and laughing children. Nope! He’s now plotting to put a terrifying spin on numerology with 11 11 11.
For those scratching their heads at why the number 11 might be significant, a quick primer: among certain circles, the digits represent either angels or spirit guardians trying to reach them to warn or advise them. And then there are the conspiracy types, who note the rise of the number in historical events (surely nothing to do with a particular date in September).
But while there’s scope to turn that into a heart-warming tale of life-affirming beauty, Bousman’s take is the idea of Heaven having 11 gates and how at 11:11 on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the eleventh year, the eleventh gate will open up and something from another world will enter ours for ele… no, actually 49 minutes. Huh. Didn’t see that bit coming. Bet the “something” is evil and has lots of eyes, though.
Valentine’s Day producer Wayne Rice apparently sparked the initial idea, noticing that November 11 next year (which, folks, is 2011!!) is a Friday and how cool it might be to have a movie open that day. One of the directors he met to discuss the idea was Bousman. "He and I sat down and over some pasta, and the movie materialized," Rice tells the Heat Vision blog. "A lot of this has been New Age-y or biblical, with talk of angels. Leave it to Darren to see the dark side of that date."
"With Saw and Repo, my career has been about finding new ways to freak people out; that's what I want to do with this," says Bousman. 'We want to take this phenomenon and give it horrific purpose." Apparently the aim is not to go for splattery gore with this one, but more of a Signs-style feeling of terror. Let’s hope the “something” from another world doesn’t have an aversion to sunshine, or snow.