Neill Blomkamp: ‘It’s possible Ridley Scott watched Chappie and was like: this guy can’t do Alien’

The Oscar-nominated writer-director of District 9 talks why his Alien film fell apart and why he went back to basics for his new movie

For most of us, the early pandemic months were are a time to panic, stay home, panic and make banana bread (while panicking) but for Oscar-nominated writer-director Neill Blomkamp, he saw an opportunity.

I always had this idea in the back of my head of doing a self-financed small horror film," he tells me over Zoom from the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia, where he decided to shoot back-to-basics supernatural thriller Demonic, able to capitalise on the relatively quiet, unpopulated surroundings. Rather than hinder things, the pandemic created the film because everything got put on hold" and during summer 2020, he made his first full-length feature in six years.