Neill Blomkamp hasn’t directed a movie since 2015’s Chappie, although he has been working on various shorts, ads, and attempting new installments in the Alien and RoboCop franchises before departing those projects. While he’s currently set to direct the sci-fi thriller Inferno starring Taylor Kitsch, that project had to be pushed back due to the pandemic. However, Blomkamp hasn’t let COVID-19 slow him down, and he’s decided to direct his first feature in five years with an untitled supernatural horror film.

Deadline reports that Blomkamp with the backing of AGC Studios made the film in British Columbia over the summer. There are no details on the plot, but it’s reportedly something Blomkamp always wanted to make and he expects to be finished by the spring. The cast is mostly made up of Canadian actors, and “there is said to be a strong sci-fi and VFX component in keeping with Blomkamp’s previous three movies.”

I’m curious to see if Blomkamp has a bounce back movie in him. There are elements of District 9 that haven’t aged particularly well, and Elysium and Chappie were fairly muddled affairs. There’s no doubt that Blomkamp knows how to make gritty sci-fi backed up with some impressive VFX, but his storytelling instincts appear questionable, and I’m curious to see if he has matured as a storyteller, or if he’s just finding new outlets to play with various CGI toys. We’ll likely find out next year when this untitled horror project arrives in theaters or on streaming depending on the distributor and how mass vaccinations are progressing.