Monsters Exclusive

SFX talks exclusively to Gareth Edwards, director of Monsters, the low budget British SF film that causing a major stir

Monsters is an amazing filmmaking achievement. That’s regardless of whether you like it or not. SFX does, a lot. Some people don’t. That may be because its title and the fact that lazy journalists have been calling it, “This year’s District 9” lead you to think it’s going to one kind of movie, when in fact it’s something quite different. As director Gareth Edwards admits, “It has more in common with Motorcycle Diaries than District 9.”

Yep, it’s a relationship movie.

It just happens to be a relationship movie that takes place in a world where monsters exist.

It’s a bit like there‘s a traditional monsters movie taking place just over the horizon, while we get to see the story of two characters travelling on the fringes of the action.

But that’s not the only thing that makes the film so amazing. The really amazing thing was the way it was made, on a budget that redefines the concept of shoestring. Edwards dismisses the oft-quoted cost of $15,000 (“I think someone’s basing that on how much the equipment came to”), putting the budget more realistically at “somewhere in the low six figures”, but even that is seems mind-boggling low when you see the images he puts on screen.

Monsters is released on 3 December. On the following pages we give you a bit of an insight into the genesis and making of this extraordinary film. And on the final page you can discover how to get discount discounts for th film on the day of release at selected cinems.

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