Neil Marshall (born 25 May 1970) is an English film director, editor and screenwriter. Marshall began his career in editing and in 2002 directed his first feature film Dog Soldiers, which became a cult film. He followed up with the critically acclaimed horror film The Descent in 2005. Marshall also directed Doomsday in 2008, and wrote and directed Centurion in 2010.
[Talking about his love of horror movies] My dad actually introduced me to them when I was a boy. He allowed me to watch all the old Universal classics and 'Doctor Who' - I was terrified, but loved it!
2
Roman history was kind of unavoidable where I was growing up. It was everywhere - all the place names and ruins and forts. My dad's a history buff and I spent a lot of time on Hadrian's Wall. I became fascinated by the idea of what was so terrifying up there that the Romans built a 60-mile long, 30ft high stone wall to keep it out?
3
I see myself more as an action director. All right, I do enjoy intense, bloodthirsty action but I like to blend and cross genres. I don't want to be too predictable. I always say Dog Soldiers (2002) is a siege or a soldier movie with werewolves, not a werewolf movie with soldiers. The primary element is making the soldiers authentic - then we can add fantasy on top of that reality.
4
It's about a superpower invading this country and being defeated by guerrilla warfare. In 2,000 years we haven't learned a thing. I kind of saw Ancient Britain as the equivalent of Rome's Wild West. I used to watch Westerns on TV with my dad and to me Centurion (2010) is very similar to an old John Ford cavalry movie, with the Romans as the cavalry and the Picts as the Apaches. Those movies would now be seen as incredibly un-PC: we're all rooting for the cavalry who are committing genocide on the Native Americans. I'm doing the same kind of thing in that I'm telling the story from the invader's point of view but I want you to root for the individuals not their politics.
My belief is that if you start a film all the way up at level 10 you've got nowhere to go.
7
...the reason horror films are being made is that distributors and financiers see a way of making easy money. The genre is riding a wave of popularity that it hasn't enjoyed in a long time. It has broken out of the hardcore audience section and is reaching a much more broad-based audience.
$900,000
