Fantasia 2010 Viral: Neil Marshall’s Centurion

Writer/director Neil Marshall’s Centurion, which had its Canadian premiere earlier this summer at the Fantasia Festival, is a solid – if not completely original – historical action film depicting a decimated Roman Legion’s survivors fighting and fleeing for their lives from a mythical Pict sect bent on revenge after one of the Romans kills the son of the Pict leader. In this video, from the pre-screening introduction and post-screening Q&A, Marshall and actress Axelle Carolyn discuss the filming of Centurion and the tough weather they had to deal with, as well as answer other questions from Fangoria Magazine’s editor emeritus Tony Timpone and an enthusiastic audience.

Marshall mentioned in the Q&A that he didn’t want to be pigeonholed as a horror filmmaker (previous directorial efforts include Dog Soldiers, The Descent, and Doomsday), but that he wanted to bring his horror director sensibilities to a historical adventure type of film, and in that regard he succeeds. The problem here is that the violence and gore may not be enough to satisfy his legions of fans in the horror genre and it’s not so much more than other historical epics of the past few years that it would be singled out as anything new. Still, it’s a great way to spend a couple of hours for those of us who enjoy a tense, action- and blood- filled movie. Enjoy it for what it is and don’t over-analyze it; this is a popcorn flick for fans of dark action movies.