For “District 9″ director Neill Blomkamp, there was no time like during the pandemic to dive into his new movie “Demonic,” which stemmed from a project he had earlier put on ice, just as the world ground to a halt last year.
“It was kind of like in March when it looked like everything was just gonna be, you know, put on pause for an unknowable amount of time that I resurrected this idea of doing a small horror film that I kind of always wanted to do,” the South African-born filmmaker, 41, recently told the Daily News.
“I do think a huge part of making the film was to like, keep busy and occupy myself with something because I think everyone was just looking for something to do.”
But the result wasn’t necessarily going to be “Demonic” — now in theaters and on VOD — which pits a young woman against the supernatural entities that fueled years of tension between her and her mother.
“I didn’t have a story,” said Blomkamp, who both penned and helmed the film, noting he eventually “looked through a bunch of previous thoughts and ideas that I had and sort of amalgamated them” into the final product.
All the “Elysium” writer-director knew when he started was that he wanted to do something similar to found footage staples like “The Blair Witch Project” or “Paranormal Activity.”
“They were not much of an artistic reference,” he explained, “But it was more like these filmmakers just took their own resources and went out into the woods and filmed something. And in the time of COVID, it felt like doing that would be awesome.”
Though he filmed in secret amid the mayhem of 2020, Blomkamp said he “tried consciously to not put anything related to the pandemic into the movie.”
Of course, that doesn’t mean parallels can’t be drawn between the current era and the claustrophobic feeling evoked when the protagonist ventures virtually into a possessed mind. That was made an on-screen reality by Blomkamp’s desire to use volumetric capture technology.
“I think that it’s impossible for [COVID] to not have affected the film,” the “Chappie” writer-director admitted. “So it probably is like a bunch of deeper psychological stuff that just, without you really realizing it, works its way into the movie. ... And it probably has to do with the sort of anxiety and like, tension that’s in the movie.”
Blomkamp said he’s intrigued more by the idea of physical demons than the “demons” of a person’s past.
“I like the idea of some sort of actual flesh and blood demon,” he explained, pointing to the decision by the “The Blair Witch Project” filmmakers to never show their monster. “But you do believe it’s there. ... So long as it feels like it could be present, it’s more terrifying to me.”
The director, best known for his sci-fi work, wanted to scare audiences, after all.
“So hopefully it’s like kind of scary,” he chuckled.
As much as he enjoyed the making of “Demonic” and “would love to back to this genre,” Blomkamp admitted that next time around, he’d “probably want a bit more resources. ... It can still be low-budget. But just some more would be good.”
After all, said Blomkamp, the film, which he called “an exercise in restraint,” only “exists because of the pandemic,” which limited resources for so many.
“It wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for this giant gap that was created.”
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