NEIL MARSHALL INTERVIEW

DC: It’s been fashionable to deride the state of American Horror Film for awhile. And yet the international scene seems to be pretty vibrant right now. Do you have a sense of being part of a “new breed” of Horror Film director or any any thoughts on what being from the UK brings to the table in terms of directing Horror Films?

NM: I’m definitely not trying to out do anybody else except maybe myself. I want to make the best films I possibly can. I love horror. I set out to make The Descent the scariest film I possibly could. It just meant making something different than what was already out there. That said I can also say I have no interest in the Teenagers in jeopardy type film, or the standard clichés and conventions of that type of film. I’m not a teenager anymore so I find it really hard to identify with teenagers, or be interested in making films about them. At this point I find myself more inspired by films like John Carpenter’s Thing and The Shining.

Ultimately I want to make the kind of horror films that I would want to go see. How that fits into the general scheme of things or what the audience wants is just a quirk of fate really.

DC: The Thing and The Shining are both known for being claustrophobic, and so are Dog Soldiers and Descent. But Doomsday takes place on a much bigger canvas both in budget and shooting environment. What were the challenges with that?

NM: Well for one thing it was great to get back outdoors![laughs] In all seriousness I really enjoyed shooting widescreen out of doors as opposed to widescreen in a cave. The weather was beautiful in South Africa and we had lots of toys to play with. Lots of steadycams and cranes. It was a joy. The challenges of Doomsday were unique to it as they are with any film project. But every film has a finite budget and a finite shooting schedule.

DC: I was also thinking of the challenges inherent in the type of sub genre Doomsday is set in. The Mad Max apocalyptic action thriller thing has been done to death, often badly, were you afraid of that?

NM: I was aware of that. Of course there are things that all these post apocalyptic films have in common but that isn’t what makes them good or bad films. Those things are commonly used because they make so much sense in terms of what that sort of future would look like. Gang warfare and mentality, manner of dress, scavenger society, are just logical outgrowths of apocalypse. We tried to make those things our own by referencing a lot of body piercing, tattoos, scarification and other tribal stuff. In the end our vision is unique I think.

DC: It’s curious but violence always seems to be something to think about in your movies vs. just being an element of entertainment?

NM: Oh absolutely. I try to present violence in my films as realistically as I can because of course ultimately it’s there to support a story and things happen in a story for a reason, not just because you want to see what it looks like when a character gets a ballbat to the face. Not that violence isn’t fun but it’s like anything else, it can take over a viewers experience. And I’m certainly aware of the larger themes in my films when I make them. Doomsday has loads of government conspiracy stuff, physical walls used to keep people apart, things you see in the news everyday. It isn’t that I want people to reduce Doomsday to just those elements but neither should it be reduced to its moments of violence. After all we do have Bob Hoskins and Malcolm McDowell in the film and that’s because when I wrote it I was interested in having these older more three dimensional characters. That’s what comes out of me at this point in my life. I’m in my late thirties and definitely more interested in that stage of life. It’s a great stage to examine these sorts of bigger issues.

DC: When we examine social issues and politics here stateside we do it in other kinds of movies- at least more overtly. But your movies are all genre films that touch on these things. Feminist concerns in The Descent, the plight of the military man in Dog Soldiers. Does being from Europe and having these concerns offer challenges when you are making movies that you know have to sell stateside?

NM: Yeah that’s interesting. I mean I had an all British cast and crew but I knew I was making a film that was meant to be seen internationally. Then again I think the concerns apply wherever you’re from because of course everyone is affected by them. We have the character of the Prime Minister in this film but he could just as easily be the President or whoever else you’d like to name. Governments and national leaders make decisions that are often appalling and totally logical at the same time. In our movie a decision is made to quarantine a whole country, wall it off and leave it to die. But the reason that appalling decision is made is because no one else can figure out what to do to stop the spread of a virus that will wipe everybody out.

Now a movie is a movie. A movie isn’t a politician, it isn’t a person. I think movies are better at raising questions than giving answers. The trick is to not put too much weight on the movie because ultimately a movie isn’t something built to do that. It’s one reason in Doomsday that the politicians are people that are clearly in an untenable position to begin with. They are trying to figure out what to do but whatever they do will mean suffering for somebody.

DC: Here in the states it can be difficult, even today, to get people thinking deeply about film because the whole process by which film happens and is made available is so commoditized. Do you have a sense of trying to subvert that by using genre film when everyone else uses documentaries or straight drama or overt war film?

NM: There’s no doubt you have to sneak stuff in there, create undercurrents in your films. Often subtlety is your best friend when you want to say something. And really genre has always been good for talking about social issues and concerns. Especially science fiction. Star Trek is a great example. They dealt with racism really effectively in that show, probably more effectively than many films that tackled the subject head on. 

DC: So what’s next after Doomsday? Is there a lot riding on this?

NM: [Laughs] No, nothing at all.  No I think I know what you mean. This is definitely more money than I’ve spent before. It’s funny I’m not in a big hurry to do a 100,000,000 or 200,000,000 dollar film because the more you spend the less freedom you get. I like being able to work on small and big canvases as a storyteller but in the end there’s always going to be a way to tell a story. I love directing too much too give it up. It can mean being in a room with two great acting and feeling that electricity shooting through you during a great scene or blowing up a house. Either way I’m with my mates and we are doing something we love