Monarch

Nice work Angle3

I thought this was great although it lacked elements that I was expecting but still good.

A beautifully shot film with some AMAZING special effects and great acting. Made such great use out of just shooting in one location too! Won't be surprised to see this in the finals!

During a parent-teacher conference, the teacher (perhaps) unknowingly unleashes a transformation that has dire consequences for those in the building. This is a pretty slick production from beginning to end. It's well acted, the story is easy to follow and it delivers a number of tropes of the thriller/monster film genre that fit perfectly with nature-run-amok. Some inspiration perhaps taken from the early Alien films in this and the standard most be pretty high for 'Monarch' not to make the shortlist.

So this didn't make the Auckland short list? Wow. A slick and haunting short, this film builds tension and character in spades. Nice effects and camera work, combined with a great script and sound make 'Monarch' a good film.

Didn't quite manage to piece everything together but definitely found it suspenseful with great effects. Always a tricky option to do a film with no humour but pulled it off well enough (although the intro was funny).

After a parent-teacher interview goes awry, our protagonist teacher has murderous thoughts of how to deal with the bad dad who thinks his naughty son's behaviour is her responsibility. But of course that would be way too simplistic, and so when the rubbish bin full of tissues from her coughing metamorphs into something sinister, all hell breaks loose within the school. Most definitely this was slick, with the Joseph Bishara-inspired soundtrack the actual highlight in my book, and the team ticked a lot of the trope boxes for the genre, with nods to ALIEN and MOTHRA being the most obvious, but the script just left me a bit cold. I think the reason for this is that the dialogue interplay between the 2 leads was engaging at the interview, but after that opening 60 seconds it all just went a bit murderous. I really liked the practical effects I must add, I just personally didn't engage with the story after the teacher was made to feel like crap. Just my 2c.