Hills, Matt. 2011. Blade Runner. Coll. Cultographies. London; New York : Wallflower Press.

Abstract

It has been over thirty years since Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982) was first released in theaters. Raised to cult film status after being distributed as a Midnight Movie, it continues to circulate in popular culture and has been the subject of numerous articles and books of academic nature (see, amongst others, Kerman 1991 and Brooker 2005). While some authors (Sammon 2007, Redmond 2008) have briefly addressed the cult of Blade Runner, this short book (112 pages) by Matt Hills is the first to be entirely devoted to the subject. Published in 2011, it is part of British publisher Wallflower Press’s “Cultographies” collection, which aims to introduce the reader to the cultural significance of a series of cult films (1). Matt Hills, author of Fan Cultures (2002) and Triumph of a Time Lord: Regenerating Doctor Who in the Twenty-first Century (2010), analyzes the cult, critical and academic discourses surrounding the many versions of Scott’s film, in order to theoretically and historically define the “LA 2019” (Hills 2011, p. 2) cult.