Interview: Writer/Director Neill Blomkamp Talks Venturing into the World of Horror for DEMONIC

Throughout his career, filmmaker Neill Blomkamp has been known for his bold and unique takes in the realm of science fiction. For his latest project, Demonic, Blomkamp is traversing new territory in more ways than one, by crafting an unusual tale of demonic possession coupled with emerging technology.

Recently, Daily Dead had the opportunity to briefly speak with Blomkamp about his experiences working on Demonic, and he chatted about his approach to the story, his desire to create something different than anything we’ve seen from him before, as well as the inspiration behind Demonic’s striking creature and reteaming with Carly Pope on this project as well.

Demonic will arrive in theaters and on VOD this Friday, August 20th, courtesy of IFC Midnight.

So great to speak with you today, Neill. I watch a lot of movies every year, and I always just want somebody to give me something different. And first and foremost, this was so different from anything I've seen in terms of stories about demonic possession, and I really thought your approach was extremely fascinating. I'd really love to hear about how the idea for all of this came together.

Neill Blomkamp: It's such a weird movie in how it came together because honestly, it was a bunch of separate ideas that I had floating around in my head, and I probably wouldn't have put them together in a movie if it wasn't for COVID. So when COVID happened and the normal Hollywood stuff I was working on paused, and everything paused in general, it just felt like a really good time to do a small, low-budget, self-financed horror film, which was something I always wanted to do. So I took these different things I was interested in, like volumetric capture was the main thing, which is the VR sequence technology that we used. And then I had this other separate idea about the Vatican, trying to portray them in a very 21st century way, where they use all of the money that they have to buy up institutions that may help them advance what their agenda is.

And then, the self-financed smaller horror film that I was looking at was predominantly Paranormal Activity. I just thought it was cool that that filmmaker shot something in his house. My original idea for Demonic was actually set in my house as well. So when you combine something to do with demonic possession, because that was where I wanted to be working, and then you combine it with this idea of volumetric capture for doing some kind of virtual reality sequence and then this idea of the Vatican, you end up with something like Demonic. So I reverse engineered it out of knowing that I was going to make a small horror film, so what elements can I put into it? It felt unusual compared to how I would normally come up with a film.

You just mentioned the VR sequences, which I just thought were really incredible. How challenging was it to not only land on what that was going to look like visually, but ultimately make it in a way that almost feels nightmarish? It was just really immersive and done extremely well.

Neill Blomkamp: Yeah, so the technology is this thing called volumetric capture, which I've just been obsessed with for several years, but I never knew how to use in a feature film. I knew I could use it in something online like Oats Studios, where we were putting out YouTube videos, but I didn't know how to use it in a longform feature setting, because it looks so glitchy and it looks so new that I didn't know how the audience would accept that. So when I started thinking about it in terms of it being something that could be a simulation, that it could be virtual reality, it started to make sense. I knew enough about it that I knew the glitchy nature of what it would look like and I knew what to expect, so we just committed to it. And it was harder to do than I was expecting, but it looks exactly as I was expecting.

I'm also a really big fan of creatures and the look of your demon is so striking. I'm curious, was that rooted in actual demon studies? Or did you take some liberties with the design?

Neill Blomkamp: I totally just made it up when I was writing it. I've tried to figure out what made me think of a raven or a crow. I still don't actually know, but I think my best guess is because of the plague masks that were from the Middle Ages, with those long beaks that they had. I actually put one of them in the movie in a nightmare sequence. I felt like the beak demon crow thing was a result of the plague mask idea, but I'm not sure. But I just wrote it in the script exactly as it looks in the movie, and then I sent that to my concept artist that I work with, Eve Ventrue. She sent back an image that's pretty much exactly what's in the movie, and I just loved it. I got the first image back and I was like, “Wow, I really dig this creature.”

I know we're already getting close on time, but I wanted to talk about Carly because she really is the heart of this, and she is your anchor for the story. Can you talk about working with her and challenging her as an actress? This really does feel like something very different than we've seen from her as well.

Neill Blomkamp: What I was saying before about a whole bunch of puzzle pieces and reverse engineering the film, it's like, because of the work that I'd done with her at Oats Studios before, I knew that she would be a really great person to have in this low budget environment, who would be an awesome team player and just be amazing. And I also knew how talented she was. So I knew before the story was done that I wanted to use her. I sent her an email saying, "I'm thinking of doing this and would you be into something that's kind of like Paranormal Activity?" And that's why her character is called Carly, because I just wrote Carly in there and she came before the script.

I'm actually not incredibly well-versed on horror. I have horror films that I like, but I don't know it the way that I know science fiction. So she was like, "I've never been in a horror film before," and I was saying, "I've never directed one before, so it doesn't really matter." And also, we're not sticking exactly to horror, we're just doing what we want, so we just approached it from more of a dramatic standpoint. I had a good time shooting it with her and the entire cast and crew as well. The whole shoot was a pretty good experience overall.

[Image Credit: Above image courtesy of IFC Midnight.]