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Neill Blomkamp made his directorial debut with District 9, the Johannesburg-based sci-fi allegory that really helped put South Africa’s film industry on the map.

District 9 was a massive success, grossing $210 million worldwide (that’s almost R3 billion) and earning four Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay for Blomkamp and co-writer Terri Tatchell, reports IndieWire.

Then Blomkamp made Elysium and Chappie, and whilst neither received the same acclaim as his debut effort, they were still well-received.

Perhaps his new film, Demonic, albeit on a lower budget, could get him back to the critical highs of District 9.

IFC Midnight has the brief official synopsis for Demonic that reads:

A young woman unleashes terrifying demons when supernatural forces at the root of a decades-old rift between mother and daughter are revealed.

It stars three Canadian actors – Carly Pope (from Popular), Chris William Martin (from The L Word), and Michael Rogers (from Beyond the Black Rainbow).

Blomkamp revealed a little bit more in a chat with Entertainment Weekly earlier this year:

“The main character is a girl who’s been estranged from her mother.”

“During the course of the film she gets sort of reunited with her mother and we learn about some crazy back story that she wasn’t aware of.

I would say it has a crossover between science fiction and horror.”

Because a large scale project was out of the question due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Blomkamp decided that a low-budget horror movie was the best way to go:

“Living out here in this slightly more rural area I was thinking we should self-finance something so that we could make something cool.

For a long time, I’ve been really interested in films like Paranormal Activity and lower budget stuff that is pretty terrifying, and so we just started working on this concept.

It grew and it got bigger than films like Paranormal Activity but it was cut from the same cloth really.

So that’s what it is. We made use out of a lot of the locations out here and just shot it through the summer.”

Have a cup of Earl Grey nearby for this one:

Demonic will be in theatres, on-demand, and via digital platforms from August 20.

[source:indiewire]