Dave Made a Maze succeeds as an innovative blend of adventure, fantasy and horror filmmaking told with a fun DIY attitude.

To truly witness artistry and creation at its most pure, observe children during arts and crafts time. Their goal is simple: let their imagination be the guide to create what they can with what’s in front of them. To us adults the results are simplistic, but for them its like creating the Sistine Chapel. This is especially so when working on those big projects: the fort; the spaceship; the rocket. Constructs of cardboard and sticky tape and glue that will entertain with days on end.  

Dave Made a Maze features such a construct. Yet its creator is not a child, but a struggling artist named Dave (Nick Thune), who during a down period in his life builds a cardboard maze that has taken a life of its own. When Dave’s girlfriend Annie (Meera Rahit Kumbhani) returns home from a weekend away only to find Dave stuck in his labyrinthine creation, she and a group of Dave’s friends decide to enter the maze, only to find a valley of pain awaits them far more severe than your standard paper-cut.

Director Bill Watterson (his debut) along with co-writer Steven Sears have delivered a brilliantly imaginative film in Dave Made a Maze. It’s blend of horror tinged fantasy, sharp witted comedy, and quarter-life dramatic angst offers much in the ways of emotional stakes and well-paced momentum in a carnival ride of an adventure movie that is innovative in its approach and execution.

Performances from all are great. Nick Thune brings the right amount of man-child charisma needed to make his frustrated artist the kind of down and out sweetheart you want to have a beer with; Meera Rahit Kumbhani is perfectly matched as a grounded presence to Thune’s stuck-in-a-rut boyfriend; and the like of Adam Busch and James Urbaniak bring the right comedic tone in supporting turns as wisecracking best friend and overbearing documentarian, respectively.

Yet the real star of Dave Made a Maze is its authentic and playful set designs. A composition of cardboard and all other sorts of DIY arts and craft making turned up to 11, the production design duo of Trisha Gunn and John Summer, along with art director Jeff White, ought to be commended for the brilliant job they pulled off here.

And so it goes with Dave Made a Maze: a movie set within an artist’s creation, created by those who utilised an innovative approach to present their art. Exciting, dramatic and fun, here’s hoping for more from Watterson and company.