Mario And Luigi

MonsterBuster's 2011 black comedy short Mario and Luigi is now available to watch on our YouTube channel!

Based on the play by Greg Garrison and performed by The Collective Project, Inc., Mario and Luigi follows Jerry (Dylan Schettina), a young ne'er-do-well whose life is turned upside down when two gangsters named Mario and Luigi (Corey Bradberry and Adam Rice) break into his apartment and threaten his life. While first believing himself to be innocent, he soon discovers that he may be guilty of a most reprehensible action after all, and Mario and Luigi will not be the last of his uninvited guests for the evening...

"Even when faced with the challenge of writing an intense drama, I found a way to write one in the form of a comedy," playwright Garrison explains. "Mario and Luigi was a short play for a vignette show I was a part of writing alongside many other authors, but this play stood out as one of the most well received and successful pieces we produced. It is meant to be intense and mysterious, but the real fun in writing it came in making the play get laughs at the same time. I was fascinated with the response, and from then on kept it in the back of my head as something I'd like to go further with."

This desire eventually led Garrison to pitch a film adaptation to MonsterBuster director Torey Haas, whose short film First Date featured Garrison in one of the lead roles. "I had seen the play and thought it was hilarious," Haas says. "I jumped at the chance to do a film version because it offered a fun change of pace from our usual horror and monster movies. Plus, anyone who knows me knows that I love old school video games- playing the original The Legend of Zelda with my mom and sister while growing up was just as big of a creative inspiration to me as watching Ray Harryhausen and Godzilla movies. Mario and Luigi gave me the chance to pay homage to some of the games from my childhood."

Indeed, Mario and Luigi is packed full of many subtle (and some not-so-subtle) video game references. Apart from the obvious nods to Nintendo's Super Mario Bros., keen-eyed viewers will also spot references to Mega Man, Kid Icarus, Duck Hunt, Earthbound, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, Milon's Secret Castle and Startropics. However, Mario and Luigi is ultimately not a film about video games but rather about how even the smallest of actions can have dire (and, in this case, grossly comical) consequences. "I love that such a large amount of product can come out of such a small idea, and from the perspective of Jerry, one little statement," Garrison adds.

"Whether he's in front of the camera or behind it, working with Greg is always a pleasure," Haas offers. "While I can't say his writing style is similar to my own, it's certainly one that I enjoy as a viewer and that I want to work with as a fellow creator." Garrison echoes this sentiment: "I found that [Torey and I] saw eye to eye in a lot of the same aspects of storytelling and that he has a unique ability to bring stories to life on screen."

Mario and Luigi was shot on a combination of Canon 7D and T2i and premiered at the MonsterBuster Film Festival in November 2011. Haas and Garrison's most recent collaboration is the trailer for The Red Herring (support the play on Kickstarter!) and their previous movie First Date, the heartwarming story of a boy, a girl, and her monstrous dad, will premiere on our YouTube channel next week.