When I read the description for The Maze, I was all in. A group of teenagers stuck in an elaborate corn maze, being hunted by a psycho? Sign me the fuck up.
And then it all went to hell.
Below stock characters who's setups consists of a few sentences, and never give any cause for the viewer to be engaged in them.
They arrive late to the counties biggest corn maze and decide to go in anyway, once inside they decide to play a game of tag.
Of course there's a psycho hiding in the maze but he never really feels threatening. Even when he's doing his evil deeds there isn't a reason to not expect one of the males in the group to just kick his ass. He's never presented as anything more than just a dude doing vile things.
The chases are laughable. Adult men get tripped which somehow causes them to break their ankles or legs or whatever. There's a lot of crawling while "acting" scared. In fact, back to back kills are setup through tripping. It's like Vince Russo booked it.
You never get much tension even when the killer is hunting everyone. It's fine for them to not know where they are in the maze, but it'd be nice to give the viewer an idea. The whole maze angle, which is a pretty fresh and keen idea, is pretty much wasted.
As underwhelming and uninspired as the maze section of the movie is, there's more.
I was surprised when the film moved to a new location with about 35 minutes left. Surprised and underwhelmed.
Once out of the maze it becomes clear the movie has very little budget. There are also technical flaws, such as when the sheriff tells his deputy that the county is gonna come in and take over the investigation, while wearing a patch on his jacket that reads "County Sheriff". Just inexcusable.
Of course if you can accept that the county sheriff is working in a police station where it's just him and one other deputy then maybe that point wont bother you too much.
The acting in the 2nd half of the movie once new characters get introduced is dinner theater level. It goes from a horror movie to a low level stage adaptation of a Lifetime movie.
So yeah, paint by numbers at the start. Low rent and silly at the end, with no particular performance that rises above average at best, No titty or interesting kill scenes, The Maze is just a big waste of corn.
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