With his Roman-on-the-run epic, Centurion, nearing completion, Neil Marshall has already lined up his next movie – and it’s a (gloriously demented) return to horror. Marshall will direct Burst, a 3D fright-flick produced by Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures, about a group of blizzard-stranded travellers who find themselves picked off, one by one, by a mysterious force that kills them via spontaneous combustion. Sounds barmy as a basket of badgers – we love it. Spontaneous combustion is an utterly terrifying phenomenon (think about it; you could burst into flames while reading this) and has been generally under-used in movies as a means of dispatching victims. And it promises to be, even without the 3D angle, a heck of a lot more cinematic than a masked nutjob stalking around dark corridors with a big kitchen knife. Interestingly, Burst will mark the first time that Marshall won’t direct from his own script, with Gary Dauberman instead taking on Final Draft duties. But Burst also sounds like something Marshall could have come up with – in a way, it could be a cross between Dog Soldiers’ wacky premise and the cold claustrophobic terror of The Descent – so we’re looking forward to this already. Raimi will produce the movie, along with his producing partner, Rob Tapert. Lionsgate will stump up the cash, which indicates that this could well become a franchise.
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