Acceptance

A pretty graphic (and horrific!) team logo is followed by a mockumentary of sorts which follows a group of recently deceased people in therapy. The catch is that all have died as a result of being victims of urban legends. This was actually pretty funny and the flashback death scenes were well constructed. The stages that are lead was going through were a clever addition and the ending was a decent pay-off. The audience warmed to this film and I certainly liked how you approached this tricky little genre. Well done!

A bit of a quirky tale of "Zombies Anonymous" of sorts. First off, I was pretty upset at the intro you included. Totally uncalled for and it was clear you weren't considering your audience at all, as it was a complete abuse. It tainted the film, which is not ideal for an intro. Anyway, you guys had some great make-up on all the various "zombies". The audio for the dialogue was clear and strong, which was great. The lead actress did an excellent job, though some of the other performances weren't as strong. I really liked when she leaned her head to the side and pointed at the "spiders" sign. Clever and funny "death" scenes. The audio levels seemed to shift about halfway through, making it a lot harder to hear what was going on. Strong ending and a great way of tying into the title. Things to work on: Lock down your post-processes to prevent audio from doing a runner on you. Some of the shot compositions needed a bit of work, but it's tough getting those right with a big group of people. The story was pretty clear, but it was more "fun" than engaging. Not a bad entry, but keep the hand-drawn goatse nonsense out of the competition.

This film had a clever way of building the Urban Legend elements into the story, by presenting a post-death support group for the demise-dignity-challenged. The coordinator of the group was the standout performance, with her gently patronising inflections making the afterlife seem like some dreadfully unending corporate team-building exercise. Lovely use of the leaf in the title of the group too. I was worried that the film was structurally meandering for a bit, but then once they began to introduce the stages of grieving things found their feet, and the conclusion of that sequence made for a pitch-perfect note to end on. The meeting room was perhaps a bit plain, and since we spent so much time in there it could have been good to dress that up a little more for background relief. But overall, I really enjoyed this film’s slightly left-field take on the genre and casually irreverent attitude.