After some teasing footage Neill Blomkamp has now unveiled a full trailer from his filmmaking group Oats Studios. Although short in length, this new official trailer promises that his forthcoming experimental short films will be very “weird”.
It was only six days ago that the director of District 9 and Chappie released a monster-filled teaser, that previewed footage collectively known just as Volume 1. It was something that he’s been teasing on social media for months now, and came to fruition when he formed the production company known as Oats Studios. Basically, it’s a very real attempt to return to his indie roots and make a series of short films that will be released online for free. Blomkamp hopes that this will see some of them grow into a feature-length movies or other viable projects. In some way, this would emulate the previous journey of District 9 to the big screen, as that too originated from his short film Alive in Joburg.
Scenes from that previous teaser showed lizard-like aliens enslaving humanity, a derelict Eiffel Tower, jungle warfare, and a blink-and-miss cameo by Sigourney Weaver. It looked exceptionally promising and some sequences seemed to harken back to Blomkamp’s vision of an Alien 5 film, something which is now known to be totally dead.
Now Oats Studios have made a full trailer for Volume 1 and made it available online. This time around we get slightly more graphic footage; a character has had his eyes bloodily removed, a messy “living” skeleton interacts with the cast, there’s more brutal warfare, one of the lizard aliens performs some fancy moves with a whip, a sinister cookery show (“Cooking with Bill”) showcases a massive kitchen tool, and a mech-suited soldier braves some hostile fire. There’s also a more lingering look at Weaver’s character, which is good if only to prove that it really was her that you glimpsed in the previous teaser. Title cards also emphasise that the films are experimental and you can expect things to get “weird”.
The footage all looks to be of cinema-quality so far, and is pretty stunning in some scenes. The complex special-effects for the aliens and fleshless bodies are particularly impressive. Whilst there are no real details as to the stories or plots themselves yet, the trailer confirms that it will be of mature content and hold sci-fi themes like scientific experiments and extraterrestrial invasions at the very least.
With Alien 5 now off the table, it’s nice to see that Blomkamp has plenty in store for fans of his directing style. Along with a possible District 9 spinoff, the short films we can now expect from Oats Studios look more and more promising with each glimpse we get of them. We still have no idea as to when they will be made available, as the trailer only states that they will be “streaming soon on YouTube and Steam”. But based on what we’ve seen so far, we’re certainly looking forward to them and will keep you updated as more information becomes available.
Next: Neill Blomkamp’s Oats Studios Releases a Monster-Filled Teaser Trailer
Source: Oats Studios
