1-800-GHOST

This was a hoot.

Some witty dialogue, clever moments and overall a well constructed sketch.

The next step for you guys is to dive deeper into the potential of your technical prowess, you guys have the chops to tell a great story, and your tech work is improving every year, so keep pushing into that and there will be nothing stopping you.

I think the nicest thing I can say about this film is that 15 years ago, stuff like 1-800-GHOST would win the whole competition.

For that reason, I love the nostalgic throwback vibe of this film, and we're looking at a MASSIVE step-up in quality for Staircase Nation, who've always made films that stand out a little bit from the low-fi class of teams.

Story, visuals and acting are all big improvements from your previous works. While I was a little deflated to see us settle into a Mockumentary (especially because an '80s infomercial was a lot more fresh), I think the acting and sense of humour surrounding our lead, Paul T Geist, gave this film a great energy. It's one of those cases where the actor knows what he looks the funniest doing, and seeing him crouched in the corner crying after his failed exorcism was my fav bit.

The story is simple, but this works as a propped up backdrop for several killer jokes. I also liked at the end how we transition back to an infomercial - very slick, very classy.

While its definitely an improvement for the team, I think there are still somethings holding Staircase Nation back, namely some uninspiring locations (I'm just in a bad mood with films shot in rooms with bland white walls), inconsistent audio levels, lesser quality cinematography and a lack of production value which I think would have really made this pop. Again, I would also advise against doing a Mockumentary next year - they occasionally do well, but mostly flop.

Challenge for next year: See if you can go about getting a slick cameraman on board. Your films can still be a bunch of gags and set-ups with story playing second fiddle, but with a higher technical quality and some rich camerawork, I could easily see this team making the finals in future years.

This was one of my favourites in the Christchurch heats! It gave off some Aunty Donna vibes. Really enjoyed the modem as an answer phone bit. Nice work.

AJ is correct in suggesting this would have been a popular and successful 48HR film back in the day. Unfortunately, there are too many cantankerous veteran reviewers on this site who've seen it all before and this one does the triple threat of mockumentary; faux-reality TV and infomercial! That said - "You payses the entry, you makes the film you want."

Some positives - the lead is great. So great you could have just built a similar story around him, making it an early episode BETTER CALL SAUL situation where he was working an office out of the back of a salon, struggling and we see one last shot at it - namely the dog exorcism. All played relatively straight, which given the nature of the events would have been comedic.

The guy doing the voice-over sounds a lot like the guy from COUNTRY CALENDAR - excellent delivery. The only issue is, that he then turns up in the next scene as a client and his voice is so distinctive it kind of ruins things. The 80s video vibe is good but given we go between the forms I mentioned earlier - kind of inconsistent. And going back into the infomercial at the end of the film makes little sense given we were in the mockumentary at the time. Weren't we?

You have the creativity in your team to really nail something we'll all really hate you for so don't wimp out by doing another trite mockumentary.

I'm not really sure what to say about this film. I think the story of the exorcist was a brilliant idea. I thought it was well thought out and there was clearly a story arc. I didn't like the dog, I think there were other ideas that would have worked better. Perhaps a pastiche of all the exorcism movies. Easy for me to say after the event, I know. Been there, got the t-shirt. I thought Josh did a great job in the lead role. Everything I could say about the locations and the technical issues have been said above. Finding a good cameraman/woman and a good sound engineer will sort most of your issues on that front. And I do appreciate that you may have been going for that grainy, haphazard feel. Either way it didn't work for me. Strangely, what caught my attention at the beginning was the moving horizontal hold just creeping up the screen. Haven't seen that since we got rid of our cathode ray tube television :)

I feel that a lot of work went into the script. There was quite a bit of dialogue. If I'm wrong and it was ad libed then Kudos to the actors.

I thought there were some nice jokes in there and plenty of bonkers ideas. And it was different enough and slightly off-kilter to stick with me for a while I think. Thinking about it I'd say that Josh's performance was the highlight of the film for me. Maybe you'll get Musical next year. I can see your team having a lot of fun with that :)