As mentioned earlier, "District 9" director Neil Blomkamp is currently working on two films, both of which may be released this year, all of which are low-cost, low-budget thrillers, and today, one of them, "Evil Spirits," revealed its first trailer.
The trailer is not the kind of trailer that gives a synopsis of the story, but only shows the style and elements of the whole movie. Judging from previous works, Neil Blomkamp's feature films are all science fiction themes, and this time the "Evil Spirits" trailer also shows some kind of scientific device, carried by the heroine on her head, as if to capture some kind of signal, through electronic technology or directly into a special place. There are many movies with this kind of "cyberspace" theme, such as The Matrix, Thirteen Steps, and Sensory Games.
And this movie science fiction style is only this, there is no grand future background and dazzling high-tech equipment, after all, small cost, it seems that this time is taking the road of "psychological science fiction", similar to Tasem Sheen's "Invasion of Brain Cells" and Nolan's "Inception" feeling. And in the whole trailer, the most prominent stylistic feature is the supernatural horror, it seems that the world in the brain or in the dream mentioned above can affect the real world, and this bridge section is widely used in the field of horror films - dreaming of being caught by ghosts, waking up with scratches, if these can also be explained in the field of science fiction, then the similar priest in the trailer, and the recurrence of the cross, means that this movie will not be pure "psychological science fiction", but really supernatural horror. The use of seemingly scientific means to explore supernatural things is reminiscent of "Conjuring", the parallel field setting is similar to "Silent Hill" and "Stranger Things", but more similar to this "Evil Spirit", in fact, it is another similar series created by Wen Ziren - "Latent", Elise and others use science + metaphysics to explore supernatural events, and the film also sets up a supernatural realm.
Neil Blomkamp has indeed directed horror genres, but not feature films, but short films, and everyone should have seen several of the short films he poured out in his oatmeal studio a few years ago, although each story is not very complete, but the settings are indeed very interesting, "Zygote Xenomorph", "Fire Bunker", "Raqqa", "Adam" are certainly the most impressive ones.
One of my favorites is "Fire Bunker", which pays homage to the style of "Apocalypse Now", combined with the exotic strange story of the supernatural story, and it will be very exciting if you make a long film. Completely different from the time of shooting "Elysium Space" and "Super Chapai", no longer having the constraints of a big studio, these short films can be described as the works of Neil Blomkamp, which is also very different.
"Evil Spirits" is a film he secretly shot in Canada during the epidemic, obviously, stylistically, this low-budget film is more similar to those short films, rather than his previous three feature films, so I hope that in the case of a relatively free creative environment, he can make a work that is as evil as it is, how weird it is, how cool it is, so that the big studio bosses can take a good look at it - a person's talent cannot be manipulated, and independence is king. It also proves to us that missing out on Alien 5 and New Robocop is actually not a loss for him and the audience, but a blessing.
Of course, as an audience, you must always maintain a moderate attitude, because the "Army of the Living Dead" that was highly anticipated some time ago really made people disappointed in Za Dao, and did not want this situation to be re-staged in this "Evil Spirits" and the next "Hell".
"Evil Spirits" is scheduled to be released in North America on August 20 this year.