DAVE MADE A MAZE out of cardboard in his living room. It’s much, much, much bigger on the inside than it is on the outside, so much bigger that Dave and all his friends get lost inside. Therein, they dodge booby-traps while being hunted by a cardboard minotaur who attacks with real violence, although all the “blood and gore” is represented by confetti. (Literally. Confetti.) This movie feels like Romper Room meets Cube. The actors remind me of the Monkees from the 1960s, always half-aware that they’re in a movie and perfectly stoic about events that would drive the average person bonkers. It’s like none of the principal characters are taking the movie seriously, which amounts to a wonderful comedic effect. Sadly, this gimmick doesn't hold up the entire movie. This should have been a short film in an anthology. It didn’t deserve eighty minutes of screen time.

"Dave made a maze" is one of the weirdest and most creative films I've watched in a while. It is clear how versatile paper, cardboard, and the medium can be. I can appreciate how the film maker utilized paper to its utmost, and every scene was quite different. The room with multiple visual ploys, like the photo on the wall/attached to the side of the camera was wonderful. The different outfits made of paper, while Dave and his girlfriend had variations of the same conversation sat with me as well. These were unbelievably well made scenes, and the story was fun to watch. I am very surprised by this movie.

This movie was so much fun to watch. It's silly, it's wildly creative, and the set design is so enjoyable and interesting. This movie was wildly enjoyable for so many different reasons, and I cannot recommend it enough. I don't want to say much more for fear of ruining any of it!

This is the perfect movie. I will die on that cardboard box.

The great thing about Dave Made a Maze is that from the start, it fully embraces its own universe and offbeat humor, resulting in a surprisingly engaging, fun, and creative experience.

This feels like a perfect metaphor -- incomplete, soft, complex, rich, and childlike all at once. Something to chew on for a long time.

the set itself is the main and most interesting character of this movie. The actors and dialogue are truly a waste of screentime and energy and still managed to take away the focus the cardboard art set design magic truly deserved. The plot left my brain uninspired and bored and annoyed. The set designers of this movie truly deserved better!

Having known nothing about this film, the title and poster were more than enough to peak my interest. Dave Made a Maze entails exactly what the title promise, but many unexpected aspects that the title retains. Being one of the quirkiest and absurd films I have stumbled upon, the film is designed as a bizarre and uneasy Sesame Street-esque children's show. The dialogue, camera angles, and acting all seem self aware of that fact, but at times seem almost genuine and unaware of the insane nature of the story. The maze and the oddities within are designed in a charming manner, seemingly inspired by a twisted Jim Henson. It is quite incredible to watch as it was all created using recycled boxes and stop motion animation. The story is a bit messy, with puzzling aspects being forgotten about and dropped by the end with no further development. The movie is bold with the choices it makes and unique with the execution, but doesn't leave a mark as a brilliant film due to these messier aspects. That being said, Dave Made a Maze is a peculiarly delightful film and is well worth he watch, despite its shortcomings.

Dave Made a Maze ist eine Fantasy Komödie von Bill Watterson… Dave, ein Künstler, der in seiner Karriere noch nichts Rechtes zuwege gebracht hat, ist so frustriert, dass er in seinem Wohnzimmer eine Festung baut… Dave Made a Maze gehört zu den „Liebe es oder hasse es" Filmen… Ein toller surrealer und schwarzhumoriger Film, ein wahres verstecktes Juwel… Einer der einfallsreichsten Filme, die ich seit langem gesehen habe…

The first fifteen minutes of it was unbearable: terrible acting and dialogues smelling of sweat. Or probably just written in an hour. Couldn't decide.

Within about 2 seconds of watching DAVE MADE A MAZE, its clear that we're firmly in indie territory---not "plucky independent studio" territory, but "a bunch of friends made a movie together" indie. The cardboard maze set design is inventive for sure, but you can see the highlights in the trailer, and skip the movie itself, which is painful.

Wtf did I just watch?!? Why didn't Gordon tell them about the whole gotdamn structure was absorbing his blood?!? Did Dave create some sort of portal to hell?!?

The story is a simple frame created to explore the astonishing creativity on display in the set design. But it doesn't need to be complex. It gives you a perfectly sized window to see into a singular world, lovingly crafted by hand and thus standing out in a world full of bad CGI. And there's enough charm and humanity to the characters, and enough depth to the narrative that it's able to say something meaningful about the creative process itself: its difficulties, sacrifices, anxieties, dangers, dead-ends, and its magic. Probably because I'm also someone who feels the intense, borderline obsessive drive to make things, yet struggles with finishing them (and perhaps because I'm thirty-three years old, still in school, and living in my parents' basement again), I find Dave's story deeply relatable (although I also related to the put-upon yet badass Annie who is dating this mess and leads the rescue expedition into his cardboard House of Leaves). Does it have its flaws? Sure. Is it perfect? No. But they made it. They finished it. They made it through the labyrinth and brought us this weird, wonderful cardboard treasure. And I would be more than happy to get lost in the maze with them all over again.

Interesting and at times entertaining, but fell flat in the end

A work of art, majestic in every possible definition on the word and several that haven't even been created yet. They set out to make something special, and this truly is a gift to the world.

This should not be in the horror section. Even if it wasn't, the female lead summed it up best early on: "This is stupid.' A bunch of liberal hipsters trapped in a cardboard box, it couldn't have ended soon enough. Maybe it does belong in the horror section because letting this play from start to finish was torture. You couldn't even look forward to the characters dying because they would just turn into yarn and confetti.

I liked the concept and set design of Dave Made a Maze way more than the actual movie. I decided to stick with it because of how original it is, but it overall was a bit of a slog to get through despite it's good qualities.

Dave Made a Maze is.... uh... creative, for sure. It feels like someone was dreaming, wrote down their dream, and then filmed it. It really doesn't make much if any sense, although the visuals are interesting, and if I was less tired at the time I watched it, maybe there would be more symbolism that would have been obvious. I didn't understand the obsession with 'we have to finish the maze' without any kind of cogent explanation, and it frustrated me.

Dave Made A Maze is an over-the-top one-of-a-kind tour de force of self-funded movie making. Directed by Bill Watterson, not Bill Watterson, the semi-reclusive creator of "Calvin and Hobbes". Watterson takes low-budget practical effects to amazing new heights. The premise of the movie is a depressed and frustrated artist builds a cardboard box fort in his living room. He winds up trapped with a few friends and an amateur film crew. Fighting monsters and booby traps as they try to escape from the maze. The tag line for the movie is "Think outside the boxes. If you want a weird, strange, and enjoyable film, check this out on Amazon Prime. Made in 2017 with a run time of one hour and twenty-one minutes it is completely worth the time.

I'm perhaps the worst person to write a review about this film. I will come clean, I am biased in favour of this type of film. There I said it, take away my critic licence. There's one aspect of any watching or reading experience that will win me over every time and have me ignoring other, usually unforgivable but in these examples puny-in-comparison, inconsequential negatives such as poor script, bad acting or incomprehensible storyline. ‘But Rich' they may say ‘the boom was visible the entire film and the main actor was replaced with a vase at the one hour mark when he quit due to an argument over artistic vision'. Yes I reply, but it has the one thing that absolves it of all sins. It's original. More money is made these days by reimagining's, reboots, and remasters than new ideas. The trailers I watched at the cinema last week before Spiderman: no way home (the third iteration of the franchise since Tobey Maguire fought Venom in 2007!) were almost exclusively for films that already existed. It's the perfect formula. Most people who have grown beyond having ‘teen' used as their primary defining adjective get swamped by nostalgia and those lucky enough to still possess the wonderous naivety of ignorance before it gets squashed by the crushing relentlessness of modern life, get a tried and tested concept as reliable at making a good impression as penicillin is at clearing up that rash you were worried about. But what if you are part of that minority of viewers; disillusioned and grumpy with the monotony of an entertainment culture that makes remakes of remakes of ideas that ripped off that other thing (that did it much better) but was inspired by that film about two other films crossed over. The group of people that don't cheer with remembrance but sigh with exhaustion as another example of history repeating appears before us. I may be labouring the point but not all of us are in-love with the constant rehashing of once great Ip's. It seems it's often left to the lowly independent producer to experiment with the potentially riskier new ideas. This is writer and director Bill Watterson's debut feature, initially a Kickstarter, it's easy to see the shear effort he poured into the film, in certain areas at least. Dave is an artist who hasn't managed to finish anything in his life. A chronic procrastinator who discovers a medium to finally focus his concentration. A cardboard fort. We get an impression that the enthusiasm he displays for this fort may be the first example of him really feeling inspired. Therefore, he is obsessed to actually finish it. It will prove to himself that he is capable of completing something extraordinary, his magnum opus, or perhaps his only opus. Without doubt the star of the film is the visual effects. For me graphics and art in a film have always added a layer of satisfaction but could never be the defining feature of a film. And prior to Dave Made a Maze I wouldn't have wanted it to define a film. I would have made a pretentious scoff noise ‘probably some arty uni film' I may have uttered. Focusing too much attention on effects ‘it takes more than an art degree to make a good film you know'. Don't get me wrong, artistic direction is vital in a good film. But even in visually astounding films, such as The terminator or Transformers, the graphics were always a supplement to the film for myself, a catalyst that enhances my enjoyment but couldn't stand up without its supporting compatriots. Dave Made a Maze its clear they had the visual concept first and let that be the trunk of the film tree which plot branches grew out of. The use of paper and card to display a surreal world plucked from an artist's imagination is so clever, god knows how long it took to film. From origami birds convincingly flying around, to a goliath easter island style god head, to hypnotic lady parts. I don't want to spoil too much, but the ‘violent' scenes had me open mouthed with awe. Every few minutes you're confronted with a brand new impressive feat of visual effects that surpasses the previous. Its funny too. The first half of the film especially had me laughing out loud many times. There's enough light humour running through the film that matches the tone of the underdeveloped characters. The storyline is relatively mundane, the acting is fine, there's no Oscars being nominated here. I personally found the camera crew following them unnecessary and annoying for most the film. It gives an opening for the characters to explain the situation and flesh out backstory when the director literally asks ‘what are you feeling right now' but most the time I felt it wrestled the narrative away from what was happening rather than deepening it. On the whole I really enjoyed Dave Made a Maze. The innovative aesthetic and light hearted attitude allowed me to easily overlook the lukewarm storyline and dialogue.