The Unsolved

With 95% of teams in New Zealand who got the holiday genre making Christmas films, this was a breath of fresh air to see a fun ensemble film here by this extremely talented Ko Taku Reo team.

Making their way to the big smoke Auckland for a holiday home getaway, our group of friends' concerns are raised when their accommodation looks prison-like and then the inside needs a cleanup before they can relax.

Some really nice Tarantino-inspired shots peppered the footage that showed an assured hand behind the camera, whilst the characters were well defined and the performers on screen did a great job. The edit was generally really smooth, well done whoever cut this together.

After a game of Cluedo however things switch up a gear, with a clicking tock and urgency to solve the puzzle of their situation before it is too late. Good tension building throughout the second half of the film and quite a sinister finale.

There was a lot lot of storytelling here and I commend the team for the scope they put into the film. The lighting was a big time highlight and your inventive camerawork left me impressed. Your use of closeups in particular were all really well done with how razor sharp they were and tied in to critical plot points.

I think you created a great sense of atmosphere when raising the stakes by initially showing that leaving the game unsolved was a standard event, but the middle of the night wakeup and sense of dread quickly came to the fore.

For mine I think that the ending maybe played out a little bit unclear; was it a sinister house/malevolent force, or was it all a silly game? The tonal shift also was ever so slightly sudden I felt, and some sort of clearer visual prompt may have given more weight to the threat and escalation? But I am nitpicking as you made a really engaging film and I loved a lot about it. Well done team.