Dave Made a Maze

A man makes a cardboard maze in his living room and gets lost in it, despite its apparently small size. His girlfriend rounds up some friends and they enter the labyrinth on a rescue mission.

95% of the sets in this film are made of cardboard, sticky tape, glue and crepe paper. Watterson plunges his characters into a world of stationery, complete with living origami creatures and string booby traps. It’s like Indiana Jones and Labyrinth set in a branch of Staples.

The end result is a funny, absurd, unrestrained and unique adventure with an endearing silly sense of humour. At times it feels a bit like someone’s crazy idea for a student film but at 80 minutes it’s not long enough to get tiresome.

Perhaps Dave Made a Maze is a bit rough around the edges and Dave himself isn’t such an interesting character, but I’m hard pressed to think of a more interesting and fun debut film from a director.