Saturday, 26 April 2008

  • Interview part two: Neil Marshall

    Parker Langley: In the second part of our interview, director Neil Marshall reflects on the horror genre and reveals his plans for a new project in Hollywood.doomsday

    Q. Have your last couple of films perhaps signalled a move away from the humour of Dog Soldiers?

    "I thought some of the outrageous humour in Doomsday was closer to Dog Soldiers than anything in The Descent. The over the top violence and blood and guts is more akin to Dog Soldiers and it's a little more parochial so it's got specific gags to Scotland and the UK that are only intended for this country, like the Tennent's lager can."

    Q. Do you think you'll always want to work in the action and horror genres?

    "I suppose Doomsday is a departure in that it's not a horror movie but all my films have a strong action element in them and that's something I want to continue. If anything I'd rather be known as an action director who does horror movies than as a horror director. I like scaring people but I also don't want to repeat myself and so I don't necessarily see myself staying within genres."
     
    Q. What are you working on next and would you consider working in America?

    "I've signed up to a project in the States called Drive, and if that goes ahead I'll hopefully shoot it in LA later this year so that will be a bit of a departure, especially as I'm not writing it either. I'm curious to explore and try Hollywood as a filmmaker but I don't want to just do stuff there from now on - I have a number of projects that I've been working on for years that I'm trying to get off the ground, some in Scotland, some elsewhere in the UK."
     
    Q. The budget is at a higher level than for any of your previous films - does the whole project need to raise its game accordingly?
     
    "Everything has to raise its game but the issues and the challenges are exactly the same - you've got this script to do and that much time and that much money, regardless of what that money is. Yes, we had longer to film this but we had more to film. So we're always up against it and that doesn't change - the only thing that actually changes is the number of zeros. But I really enjoyed the challenge of
    the scale."
     

    Q. To what extent is Doomsday a British film?
     
    "It's almost all American money but it's an all British cast, a British and South African crew so it's more British than something like The Bourne Ultimatum, which won Best British Film recently – I don't see any British element in that film apart from the director. So I'm confident in saying it's got a very strong British heritage. It's also got a British sense of humour."
     
    Q. The film performed disappointingly at the US box office - how did you feel about that?
     
    "I was gutted. Something didn't click, I think the marketing campaign was badly handled and it should never have been released in the States first. It was internal politics and I think they should have held off until after the UK release. So I was disappointed that audiences just didn't seem to get it. It was pretty much marketed as a straight action movie, which I don't think it is, it's a bit quirkier than that. We needed a bit more specialist treatment and it was slapped with a bog standard action movie campaign and dumped on the market place. It's got a very loyal hardcore fanbase out there now, so people who have seen it really love it. Quite a lot of critics really liked it as well, but it splits people down the middle - you either love it or hate it, there's no middle ground. But at least some people do love it as opposed to everybody hating it. It should have been marketed and
    released in the same way as The Descent, where it came out in the UK first and a fanbase grew and word of mouth spread. But it is going to have a life beyond the opening weekend in the US - I'm sure it will find its feet on DVD. There will be a special DVD - I've done an extended director's cut which puts back a lot of interesting stuff."
      
    Q. What do you think of the current horror films coming from the UK, the US and elsewhere?

    "There's been such a big surge in horror cinema over the past five years, but the trouble with that is while you get a lot more movies, you get a lot more bad movies and a few good ones. But there are always going to be good and bad horrors regardless and it's never going to go away, it's not going to disappear like the western. There's too big a hardcore fanbase and they're very loyal and they
    love their horror. I think making films for a PG-13 audience is a problem for horror movies, and that's part of the reason why so many have to be kept on low budgets, targeting the hardcore audience, rather than doing it the other way which is to make a big-budget PG-13 horror, which works fine if it's something like The Others, which is a ghost story, so it's not gory and they can get away with a PG-13 for that. But most other PG-13 releases are just lightweight, it's diet horror. I'm a huge fan of [Rec]. It's not original, there's nothing new about it - it's like 28 Days Later but in a building, but it's beautifully made and such fun. And of course it's scary. And The Orphanage is also a beautifully made ghost story. There's a ton of great stuff coming from Spain at the moment - they're out to make quality movies, and scare the shit out of people, and they're doing it very, very well.

    Doomsday is in cinemas on May 9. Read Parker Langley's review here.

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