Add another one to the massive  list of Guillermo del Toro's ongoing projects (he just wrapped on Pacific Rim and will spend the next year in post, but is also attached to direct Beauty and the Beast with Emma Watson, is producing the animated Day of the Dead and his production effort, Rise of the Guardians debuts November 21st).  This time around, del Toro is optioning a spec script by Adam Robitel, a protege of Bryan Singer's (X-Men).  The Bloody Benders is a genre-mashup that is equal parts Western, horror, thriller and love story.  It centers on the true accounts of the Benders, a family who ran a hotel on the outskirts of the Kansas prairie in 1873.  As the title suggests, the Benders were not the most accommodating of hosts; up to 20 people that checked in were robbed and murdered without the Benders ever being prosecuted.  Sounds like a picture that's thematically right up del Toro's alley.  Hit the jump for more on The Bloody Benders.Deadline reports that del Toro will team with Angryfilms' Susan Montford and Don Murphy on The Bloody Benders.  Del Toro is expected to do a polish on Robitel's script but also noted that the team is eager to move forward and place a director shortly.  Here are del Toro's comments on the thematic nature of The Bloody Benders:

"It is a beautiful and brutal yet poetic story, based on a very famous case. If you consider America back then, it was a great transition to modernity, but on the prairie, these were huge landscapes where people traveled and days and weeks on end would pass without communication. So nothing happens, then there is this brutal murder, and then it’s back to pastoral peace and quiet. That rhythm was very attractive to me. The time was so lax back then that the sheriff would show up and say, ‘What is that odor coming through the vent that smells like decomposing flesh?’ and the Benders said they didn’t know. And the sheriff said, ‘Would you mind if I take a look…tomorrow?’ Nobody was in a hurry, and that is a big reason why they got away with it.”

Sounds like a mash-up of Fargo/Psycho/Rango and I'd love to see where this one ends up.