Biography for
Neil Marshall (I) More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

25 May 1970, Newcastle upon Tyne, England, UK

Height

6' 1" (1.85 m)

Spouse

Axelle Carolyn

(31 October 2007 - present)

Trivia

Member of the unofficial "Splat Pack," a term coined by film historian Alan Jones in Total Film magazine for the modern wave of directors making brutally violent horror films. The other "Splat Pack" members are Alexandre Aja, Darren Lynn Bousman, Greg Mclean, Eli Roth, James Wan, Leigh Whannell & Rob Zombie.

Engaged to writer Axelle Carolyn (May, 2007).

Was rumored to be the director of Predators (2010).

Was on the shortlist for the job to helm Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2013), along with Mike White and Jeffrey Blitz, before White was offered the project.

Was set to direct Drive (2011), but was replaced by Nicolas Winding Refn.

Personal Quotes

...the reason horror films are being made is that distributors and financiers see a way of making easy money. The genre is riding a wave of popularity that it hasn't enjoyed in a long time. It has broken out of the hardcore audience section and is reaching a much more broad-based audience.

My belief is that if you start a film all the way up at level 10 you've got nowhere to go.

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) is what made me want to make movies.

It's about a superpower invading this country and being defeated by guerrilla warfare. In 2,000 years we haven't learned a thing. I kind of saw Ancient Britain as the equivalent of Rome's Wild West. I used to watch Westerns on TV with my dad and to me Centurion (2010) is very similar to an old John Ford cavalry movie, with the Romans as the cavalry and the Picts as the Apaches. Those movies would now be seen as incredibly un-PC: we're all rooting for the cavalry who are committing genocide on the Native Americans. I'm doing the same kind of thing in that I'm telling the story from the invader's point of view but I want you to root for the individuals not their politics.

I see myself more as an action director. All right, I do enjoy intense, bloodthirsty action but I like to blend and cross genres. I don't want to be too predictable. I always say Dog Soldiers (2002) is a siege or a soldier movie with werewolves, not a werewolf movie with soldiers. The primary element is making the soldiers authentic - then we can add fantasy on top of that reality.

Roman history was kind of unavoidable where I was growing up. It was everywhere - all the place names and ruins and forts. My dad's a history buff and I spent a lot of time on Hadrian's Wall. I became fascinated by the idea of what was so terrifying up there that the Romans built a 60-mile long, 30ft high stone wall to keep it out?

[Talking about his love of horror movies] My dad actually introduced me to them when I was a boy. He allowed me to watch all the old Universal classics and 'Doctor Who' - I was terrified, but loved it!