Neil Marshall: Doomsday is my homage to post apocalyptic films of the early 80’s. Escape from New York, The Road Warriors, Metal Storm, you name it. Everything is thrown in the mix. The basic story is that in the present day a virus occurs in Scotland and starts to wipe out the whole population. As a last resort they (government) quarantine the entire country. To do this, they build a wall from east coast to west coast, which cuts off Scotland from the rest of the world. Nobody can get in and nobody can get out, leaving everybody to die. The story picks up 25 years later, when the virus reoccurs, in a vastly overcrowded room and they have reason to believe that their our survivors north of the wall. The government has been keeping quiet about them. They send in soldiers and scientists to try and find a cure. What they find there is this post apocalyptic society which is a mix of Glasgow marauders who are cannibalistic, and then a feudal society with knights in armor. They’ve (knights) raided all of the museums in the area. So they are fake medieval not real medieval. So in one scene, the wall behind them has a gift shop sign. The knights’ quest is a bit of an Apocalypse Now journey up the river to find the cure. It’s full of crazy action and adventure.
MT : Was it a cool reality to get to work with Malcolm McDowell and Bob Hoskins?
Neil Marshall: Totally. I’ve never worked with anyone like that before. I was lucky enough to bring back a whole bunch of guys from Dog Soldiers. Everyone is playing someone completely different for roles. We also got back a couple of the girls from The Descent. They’re great people to work with. I love em’ to bits. I knew they would deliver. I don’t need to worry about them so much. They have such loyalty to me and vice versa. They will give their all at all times. Into that mix, we have Hoskins and McDowell and they are complete icons. They’re playing very different characters to what I’ve seen them play before. Malcolm was an absolute joy, just a lovely, lovely guy. So is Bob. As they both say, their favorite place in the world is to be on a film set making movies. That’s exactly the way I feel, so we have a lot in common. Bob Hoskins flew all the way down to Cape Town to do one scene in which all he had to do is sit in a car and say one word. He finished it and got back on a plane to the UK. That’s a 12 hour flight.
MT: In Dog Soldiers and The Descent, you found ways for very creative bloodshed. Do you have some more of this in Doomsday?
Neil Marshall: Somebody gets cooked alive and eaten. There’s more blood and guts in this film than The Descent. The difference is it’s all throughout the film, lots of nasty stuff. I’m not going to shy away from it.
MT: What’s your secret to making these big, elaborate scares on a low budget?
Neil Marshall: Well, for example, with The Descent, I told the DoP that we have no other lights besides what the (girls) take with them. I don’t want any beautiful light coming down making our caves look spectacular. That’s not real. I wanted to have a widescreen, with very little light. You know a tiny corner, with someone with a match. I thought that would focus the claustrophobia. Visually, it’s very striking. Sometimes, it’s very difficult to make the lighting work properly. If it’s black, use sound. Within the cave, it’s the perfect environment to do that. With Doomsday, it was the opposite. I wanted to do a huge scope-scale film. Everything had to be bigger on this one. We filmed the whole thing in South Africa and we got a lot for our money. It looks like a one hundred million dollar movie, but it’s thirty.
MT: How has you style grown over the films you have done?
Neil Marshall: It’s a growing up process. With me, my DoP and production designer, we’ve been on the same journey together. We had to work on a small scale for Dog Soldiers and The Descent. We are maturing as a group. We all back each other up and we are able to work very quickly too. If there’s a style I have, it’s to do everything in camera. I don’t like to rely on visual effects, though there are one hundred or so visual effects in the movie, it’s the most I’ve ever done. I like it to look real and raw. If someone is going to get hit by an axe, I want to make it as brutal and real as possible. I think in the long term, practical effects stand the test of time, every time.
MT: What’s the most challenging practical effect you’ve had to do?
Neil Marshall: We built these two, six ton, armored tank things. In the scene, I wanted the tanks to go in the air, and come down with a bang. I wanted it to look like a beached whale. They (visual effects team) made it look exactly how I wanted it too. Each one has their own challenges. Making them look real being the biggest one. If there is a fall in my film, it has to be that someone won’t be hurt or we make it safe so they won’t get hurt. It has to be totally real.
MT: How did you initially get funding for Dog Soldiers?
Neil Marshall: It was an incredibly long and meticulous process. From writing the first draft of Dog Soldiers to shooting it was six years. At the end of the day, it came down to pure luck. This guy, David Owens,? wanted to make a werewolf movie and we had a sketch and he saw the script and sketch and bought in to it. At the time, no one was interested in making horror films. The concept of the British film industry funding a horror film was just abhorrent for them. It ended up being funded by a Spinach magnet from Arkansas. Luckily, horror picked up and The Descent was funded by a British company and that was a lot easier.
MT: What’s next for you?
Neil Marshall: I’m trying to do a thing called Eagle’s Nest. Its Die Hard meets Remains of the Day.
MT: Are you worried about the ratings board with Doomsday?
Neil Marshall: We aren’t pushing the gore boundaries. I don’t
know though. We’ll see.
Doomsday will be released early next year.
- The Massie Twins
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