Director of interest.

Neil Marshall is an English Director, Screenwriter and Editor. Marshall has directed an array of films such as Dog Soldiers (2002), The Descent (2005) and Doomsday (2008).

Marshall is one of my favorite Directors and I have quoted a lot of his work in my theories throughout university. Marshall tends to direct (screen write, edit) horror, fantasy, and thriller genres. 

Dog Soldiers (2002) follows a group of 6 soldiers training in an open forest in Scotland. One night they come across a seemingly abandoned and destroyed camp containing live real weapons. A man soon appears all bloody and injured claiming that his camp was attacked by something. Hearing noises the group gather the man and set out to be evacuated: their training has now stopped.

Running through the woods a teammate is killed and their sergeant is injured, rescuing him they then stumble across a women who takes them to an old cottage. There the men defend it against what they believe to be werewolves.  One by one the men get hunted down and the injured man transforms in to one of the beasts. 
Numbers dwindling and the house coming under attack they learn that the beasts actually once lived in the house the women (who saved the group) is actually a werewolf who can subdue her werewolf form and brought the men here to be slaughtered, the sergeant kills her and rigs the house to explode before he can turn in to one of the wolves. Only one man and a dog survive.

This film was made on a low budget and the werewolves were created with puppets rather than CGI. I think the reason why I like this film is because of the low budget factor. Marshall doesn’t go over the top creating silly things that in the end look rubbish. He uses his initiative and what money he had to try and create something creepy, and it works. The werewolves actually scared me because they are so tall and resilient. They get knocked down but get up again. They also reflect the army men by working in a team to whittle down the army men numbers.

The story is High Concept and easy to follow, it contains lots of weapons, shouting, swearing, and male dominance (only one women is seen throughout the whole film).  

The location is brilliant (a secluded cottage, where the neighbours are hundreds of miles away).  Its British so the characters are relatable and likeable in different ways, we understand their humor and it isn’t too cheesy.

The Descent is fairly similar in that it uses a cave system which is also secluded but claustrophobic. Instead of Werewolves he invents humanoids (men trapped in caves for years who have then turned to cannibals, who are blind and hunt by sound and smell, who can crawl along walls and scream to each other) are present as the antagonists. Marshall had the cast of this film all female opposite to Dog Soldiers.

Marshall uses a lot of elements that I like. His stories are straightforward but yet I am immersed in them. I like the survival factor in his films themes and he uses a small cast so we only delve on them rather than introducing lots of other characters so we lose track. Because of the small cast we get to create a bond and build emotions for them, then when one of them dies we are devastated.

I also like Marshalls Fantasy element, such as creating Zombies, Werewolves and crawling creatures. Like I have stated he doesn’t use CGI but instead creates puppets and latex costumes which make them all more believable and freaky. He even stated in an interview that ‘most of the cast don’t get to see the monsters until they begin to shoot so he gets to capture all the actresses real emotions’ (he basically scared the hell out of them because they look so real and strange).