There has been an onslaught of rumors lately about the Rodriguez/Tarantino exploitation smashup Grind House, and aside from the cast members we’ve revealed right here on CHUD (hooray for Biehn!), most of them have been negative.

For example, the buzz circulating last week was that filming on Rodriguez’s Project Terror, which has been shooting in Austin, had shut down production. Had one of the most economical directors working today gone drastically over budget? Did he accidentally destroy an important city landmark? Was it a temporary delay, or was the whole movie just deceased? Was it due to his sudden separation from his wife (and producer of both his films and children)? Did she find out he had an affair with one of his actresses, or was she just pissed about his dozen or so paintings of Salma Hayek? Or was it somehow all Tarantino’s fault?

Curiously, outside of the verification of Rodriguez’s marriage trouble, we haven’t heard any official statements from anyone regarding the matter. This includes studio heads the Weinsteins, who I can only assume are holed up in the private room at their favorite restaurant laughing and engorging themselves on expensive food and whores (this is probably untrue, but it’s just how I always imagine the Weinsteins), even though shutdown rumors can’t be good for their already unstable corporate image. Nor have we seen any verification or contradiction of the rumors from Ain’t It Cool News, which is very strange since they’re supposedly tight with both the filmmakers (despite the fact that they opted to run a negative review of the script for Death Proof, Tarantino’s half of the film), and webmaster Harry Knowles is based in Austin, where Rodriguez has been filming his zombie tale.

But the Tarantino Archives have been trying to sift through the bullshit, as have several CHUD sources who’ve either been peripherally involved with or stumbled across the production. So it seems that most of these admittedly suspicious rumors are indeed rubbish — Rodriguez has already shot the most complicated sections of his film, and the cast will be returning to finish up before Tarantino (who’s been on the set for a significant portion of what’s been filmed) gets rolling on his part next month. Verified cast members involved so far include Michael Biehn, Rose McGowan, Josh Brolin, Freddy Rodriguez, Tom Savini, Marley Shelton, Jeff Fahey (!!) and QT/RR regular Michael Parks (From Dusk Til Dawn, Kill Bills), with gore-master Greg Nicotero providing the necessary mess.

At a recent exhibit for Rodriguez’s artwork (a charity event), the cast purportedly told press they weren’t allowed to discuss the film because of the whole "secrecy thing". Is it all just some bizarre way to build notoriety about the film? Who knows — I’m just itching to see what kind of crazy exploitation homage these two cats come out with, and I’ll have to wait until December (at least) to find out.