Burnt Out

Clever and fun concept, with some wonderful shots, let down here and there by technical issues.

Funny and clever concept for a film, loved all the toast :)

This film took the award for 'Best Use Of Prop' - I couldn't look at another slice of toast afterwards. Great concept with some funny moments.

Toast, toast, toast. Toast for Africa! Good story, and some excellent shots (I like the ceiling shot of the bathroom).

O dear god, THE TOAST! Things I liked: humours use of the prop and interpretation of the genre, some nice shots too (the top down bathroom shot was great) I was waiting for a mountain of toast to come crashing down over the main character but it never came... (at least in the crazy over the top amount I was expecting)

A guy is stalked by a possessed toaster and the toast it makes...lots of toast. Pretty interesting/wacky concept. Some nice looking shots, especially the overhead one in the bathroom - reminded me a bit of American Beauty but with toast. Acting got better when there was no dialogue - the "I'm going to be late for work" at the start really could have been avoided by showing him rushing rather than telling us this - no one says this out loud in that way! Not particularly scary at all and even for a comedy horror there was a distinct lack of tension. Good effort, enjoyable and it's great to see Vatican Daycare competing post-school.

Hi Team Great story setup, some wonderful gags with heaps and heaps of toast. The middle part of the story let you down, was feeling a little rinse and repeat and story wise, empty. A wonderful ending that was not expected. Just watch you technical stuff, background audio on loop was noticeable. Editing was a little slow and made the film feel fat, especially at the start. Also watch you colour balancing, overall blue/purple tone did not suit the style of the film.

This was a great, simple concept, no explanation or backstory needed (although perhaps the toast felt scorned because he left the house without taking it?). The title shot, staying on the toaster and pushing in as the toast pops up, was a great example of how a well-chosen music cue can alter the tone of something that's otherwise mundane profoundly. I found the middle section at the protagonist's work dragged a little, and was also a bit confusing logic-wise, since it was clear he was working with other people, yet apart from the lunch room there was no interaction with them. Technically, this film seemed to yoyo between the artful and the merely functional. Highlights of the former include not just the closing top-down bathroom shot, but more than that the shot that immediately proceeded it, with the guy waking up to see the toaster teetering on the edge of the bath. (That moment I found to be genuinely scary, even if the logic of why he chose to have a bath at all was unclear.) And speaking of the ending, I really liked the beat we ended on, but I felt like the path we went through to get there was too quick, to shallow. I want to see the stakes escalate further, and see how many other things toast could take the place of. Maybe the #1 thing I was missing given the setup was the aspect of psychological horror. Which is to say, I really wanted the camera to get right up in the guy's face, let us really feel the growing discomfort of his day. And seeing his emotional responses more clearly, we would then better understand the choices he makes. Still, this had to have been fun to make, and it was definitely one of my favourites of the heat.