MASHED

This was sooo well done. Pacing was perfect, strong story, well shot, good gags. Cinema 🤌

This is my favourite comedy horror, it gets the balance just right. The concept is so ridiculous that the actors are able to be completely serious about it, and not try at all to be funny, while the viewers are still laughing through the entire thing. The banana man is absolutely 100% a creepy horror character, invisible face and all - while also being 100% a man in a banana suit. And eating banana man's mashed face? Amazing.

"When you waste a banana, the Banana Man wastes you!" has to be a contender for best delivery of a line of dialogue!

This was a lot of fun to watch. I kept thinking about how much fun the team must have had planning and creating this - especially the punching scene with all the mashed banana! Really well executed, beautifully shot, and true to genre. Great job Imperials!
Is it wrong I want a sequel?

This was so so funny, I'm so glad that I got to catch it with an audience at the heats! I loved taking a simple premise and going absolute bananas with it (I'm so sorry, I've stolen your punchline). The escalation is so good from the expected banana peel slip gag, to then driving past the banana suit in the car and then the final fight! I loved the anonymity of the morph suit under the banana costume. The fight was so hilarious, I was equal parts delighted and disgusted when the protagonist starts eating fist falls of mashed banana. Keep up the great work!

What I liked:
Zany, well-thought-out comedy-horror with a superb villain. Some classic horror movie shots, tension and suspense. A mad OTT fight scene, happily, with an overextended punching scene. Loved the sad eating of the banana mash.

Take it or leave it:
I was puzzled by the geography of the location – he enters through the back door, goes upstairs and then ends up in the kitchen. Maybe it’s like that, ha, ha, but it kept my brain occupied. Why were those photos so low on the dishwasher – it just served one of your shots and seemed weird! I think the weakest sequence was the first conversation between the dudes because the audio was a little muddy.

Final hot air:
A fun, well-made short. Well done making the shortlist, and you have a great chance of hitting the finals unless the judges were split.

A man wastes a banana, and the bananas aren’t happy.

This was all kinds of hilarious and horrifying! The shots were fantastic, and really helped build that sense of tension and dread as the film goes on. The way you used lighting really helped sell the passing of time, and the sheer horror of the banana-fueled frenzy of the night. I loved how you shot/edited the banana man, you never see his face, and then, it’s mashed. Absolute cinema.

The only comment I have is that the audio at the beginning of the film felt a bit echoey, I’m guessing the mic was used from on-camera rather than a boom? A closer mic and a lil sound processing can go a long way. It didn’t detract from the story too much, but it did make some moments a little hard to hear.

Overall however, this film was a horrifying delight, and really makes me weary to engage with any fruits that may harbour resentments upon not finishing completely. Congrats on the shortlisting and making sure I get my five fruits and vege a day properly!

'If you waste a banana, the banana man wastes you!'...i enjoyed this line

This film is so well-made. You know exactly what you're doing with all those horror tropes, balancing them with just enough comedy, and leading up to the perfect jump scare. But also the carefully scripted dialogue and the on-point performance absolutely up the emotional stakes.

I like how early on you switch between mundane-feeling footage and polished horror-feeling shots, before easing more fully into the horror vibe and ramping up the stakes as the film progresses.

I love that the bananaman looks like a ringwraith from The Lord of the Rings on account of his face being shrouded in darkness.

Great find of a relevant public-domain banana song!

I nominate you for best use of extended gratuitous violence. Hilarious! And then to reveal the mangled remains of the bananaman's face, and eat them? So good!

On another note, I wasted a lot of bananas for Fruitstorm's team intro. Now I am afraid.

The use of point of view shot was so good in this film, I was shocked it didn't win an award. It's only now I realise that wasn't even a required element. Stunning work.

JUSTICE FOR THE IMPERIALS IS SERVED!

The year was 2024, and team Middleton Imperials had cooked up one of the slickest school team films we had seen in a long time, an absolute slam dunk of an entry that was surely guaranteed to take our best school in Christchurch. Alas, they were beaten out by some kid with a bald cap and an accordion, absolutely devestating.

So to see this team return this year, go full force, and land not only super comfortably in finals but get enough praise for some serious nominations was incredibly satisfying!

This was by far the best comedy-horror balance we had this year, with high moments of tension blended into an absurd and hilarious tale. It's really hard to pull off scary in 48Hours - and maybe this kind of scary isn't for everyone, but boy oh boy did it scare me! We have live footage of me jumping in my seat and Rachel finding it hilarious.

I would have maybe saved the reveal of the banana costume for the jumpscare and not the car driving by, I think that may have given away the game a little early, but beyond that plot choice, the rest was just fabulous. Peak atmosphere, such a great use of your single light to create moonlight from outside, and cinematography that created a real sense of isolation. And then that finale is just WILD - incredible commitment, absolutely disgusting and hilarious, with a slam dunk of a final shot.

This is one of the films we would have loved to see take our more wins. Congrats to Lois for your WIFT recognition, a well deserved feather in your cap.

THE BEST THING: An incredible use of genre to deliever a really confident film, crazy work from a bunch of 19 year olds, me from a decade a go is VERY jealous of this one.

THE NEXT THING: I have a feeling this is just the beggining for the Imperials! I can see you easily becoming a staple in the Chch region, and I very much look forward to seeing next years entry!

A favourite film of a lot of my friends! So many great laughs here; I can only imagine how much fun you guys would have had putting this together. The final shot looking down on the banana man? That will stick with me for years to come. Great stuff!!