Final Cut

The beloved and award-winning author of Black Hole presents a haunting and visually arresting story of an artist's obsessions and the value and cost of pushing the boundaries of creativity. As a child, Brian and his friend Jimmy would make sci-fi films in their yards, convincing their friends to star as victims of grisly murders, smearing lipstick on the "bodies" to simulate blood. Now a talented artist and aspiring filmmaker, Brian, along with Jimmy, Jimmy's friend Tina, and Laurie—his reluctant muse—sets off to a remote cabin in the woods with an old 8 millimetre camera to make a true sci-fi horror movie, an homage to Brian's favourite movie: Invasion of the Body Snatchers. But as Brian's affections for Laurie go seemingly unreciprocated, he writes and draws himself into a fantasy where she is the girl of his dreams, his damsel in distress, and his saviour wrapped into one. Rife with references to classic sci-fi and horror movies and filled with stunning depictions of nature, film, and the surreal, Burns blurs the line between Brian's dreams and reality, imagination and perception. A master of the form at his finest, Final Cut is an astonishing look at what it means to truly express oneself through art.