Dave Made a Maze (2017)

Dave Made a Maze is the kind of movie that reminds you cinema can still feel hand-built and mischievously alive: a cardboard fort becomes a full-blown wonderland of traps, creatures, and impossible rooms, all realized with delightfully tactile, low-tech artistry. It plays like a crafty fever dream—equal parts goofy comedy and gentle horror—where the joy comes from watching imagination turn into architecture, and every corner promises a new visual gag or ingenious set piece. Beneath the confetti-and-yarn mayhem, there’s a surprisingly relatable pulse about creative paralysis and the messy courage it takes to finish something, even when it fights back. If you prefer slick effects or straightforward storytelling, its scrappy, whimsical chaos might not be your maze, but for anyone craving originality with real personality, this one is a minor miracle of invention.

Dave Made a Maze is clearly trying to turn a quarter-life-crisis comedy into a handmade fantasy-horror adventure, and the cardboard/origami production design is genuinely imaginative in a “how did they build this?” way. The problem is the film leans so hard on quirk and meta-jokes that the dialogue and character beats can feel flimsy, which makes the emotional stakes and tonal shifts (silly one minute, “horror” the next) a bit grating. If you need sharp writing, believable relationships, or comedy that lands consistently, this maze may feel like a clever short stretched into a feature. But if you’re happy to trade story and character depth for crafty visuals, light gore, and a weird, DIY vibe, it’s an easy enough ride.