Strain Andromeda The

With Strain Andromeda The, video artist Anne McGuire has created an awesome and spellbinding film that throws everything from story structure to character motivation into question. Put simply, McGuire has taken Robert Wise's entire 1971 virus from outer space classic The Andromeda Strain and re-edited it shot-by-shot precisely in reverse, so that the last shot appears first and the first last, though nothing is actually running backwards. As the film unfolds (or reverts?), more and more information about how the characters and their surroundings came about is revealed to us. While initially confusing, the film quickly takes on an ominous and mesmerising quality that defies description. The original film plot is one filled with tension in a 'race against time' which only adds to this effect. -Michael Sippings, Brighton Cinematheque

"It develops its own wonderfully absurd and perplexing level of suspense." -Chicago Filmmakers

"...every action is followed by its stimulus, every comment by its query, you find yourself in a dizzying spin, grasping desperately for causal certainty, yet firmly held by the reversibility of suspense." -Steve Seid, Pacific Film Archive "