There isn’t much known about the secret horror movie that Neill Blomkamp was filming during the quarantine, other than that he did film it and it used primarily Canadian actors. Apart from that, there isn’t really a lot that can be said about it since everything is being kept under wraps until he’s ready to release any other details. That kind of leaves writers in a tough spot since without knowing what we’re supposed to be talking about we have to go back and talk about his other accomplishments such as District 9, Elysium, and the unfortunately ill-fated Chappie, which was a critical and financial failure that kept with Blomkamp’s love affair with VFX but didn’t really perform the way it needed to. The director has definitely been fond of using VFX in his movies, almost as much as Michael Bay likes making things go boom. But this upcoming horror movie will apparently make good use of VFX as well, though until we get more details we won’t know how and will likely have to guess. Knowing that this is Blomkamp’s signature though is enough to get a few decent ideas of what might be coming since he’s already made it known how he likes to apply his effects and how they’ve been utilized in the stories he’s created.
To be sure, it would be great if he was still going to be attached to the Alien franchise since up until Ridley Scott became serious about Covenant it does sound as though Blomkamp might have been in line to create an Alien movie with the original cast, however that might have worked. A reboot of course would have been the way to go, but unless there was some actual point to it there are a lot of people that would rather not see the Alien franchise touched if it can be avoided. But thinking of Blomkamp’s ability to come up with mech suits that are able to grant the wearer so many different capabilities depending on the movie, it does feel as though Alien could, in his hands, become something far more than what it eventually became under other directors. If anyone is thinking of Aliens and the fight between Ripley and the queen at this point it would be understandable since that particular fight was one that Blomkamp could probably do something with, but where to go from there would be an interesting question. As of now, it doesn’t sound as though he’s on the Alien project any longer and probably won’t be unless someone recognizes that he could actually do something with it and create a story that might be accepted by the older fanbase and even remembered for years to come by the younger fans.
Until such a thing as that happens though it’s going to be interesting to wonder just what he’s been up to with horror and VFX being paired together as story elements, and what the movie will be about, to begin with. Horror is a pretty broad term after all since it can cover a wide number of different stories given that cerebral, visceral, comedic, dramatic, science fiction, and fantasy are all possible directions for a horror movie and all of them tend to offer up their own unique challenges that need to be addressed when making a movie. But with the kind of faith that people already have in Blomkamp, it’s very easy to think that fans will accept whatever he puts forth when the time is right, especially given that people still think that District 9 is a masterpiece. Granted, it’s a great work of science fiction, but a masterpiece is putting a pretty big label on it that makes it sound like Blomkamp’s magnum opus, which feels wrong since he’s still too young to have peaked in this manner. While it’s true that the rest of what he’s done hasn’t felt quite as meaningful as District 9, the hope that I and many other people might have is that this new horror movie will set the record straight and claim District 9 as one of his masterpieces, but not the greatest thing that he’s capable of at this point. This could be what many people are already thinking since Blomkamp could easily have a lot more to offer, as people are hoping, but talking to some folks it would feel as though his efforts have been fading steadily with the passing years.
That doesn’t feel like it’s the case for everyone, but the fact is that Chappie, his last big movie before he started filming short films for a while, kind of forced some people to lose faith. Hopefully, this new horror movie will make up for that and will remind people that he is a talented director. At the very least it will be interesting to find out more about it eventually.
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