Starring: Willa O'Neil, Neil Rea, Ashleigh Seagar, Takia Cohen, Charlie Bleakley & Jon Brazier
Directed By: Robert Sarkies

Scarfies is Director and co writer Robert Sarkies' black comedy/thriller. Scarfies is the second major film release from New Zealand this year. The first being What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted. Though not a comedy this is a film which is much more laid back and fun than the quite serious Broken Hearted.

This film tells the tale of five new flatmates in Dunedin who discover a large batch of marijuana in the basement. After taking a vote and discussing the issue the group decides to sell the marijuana, only to have the previous owner of the flat come back in a storming rage. The former flat owner is locked in the basement by the flatmates and they manage to keep him tied up. From this story the movie is able to draw some morality issues, black comedy, suspense and many tense situations.

As a group the six actors in this film are all well played, though Jon Brazier as the angry former flat owner is the most colourful. The characterisation is also well done as here we have a group of characters who all have clear personalities about them. Nobody is developed beyond caricature but for this style of film it is fine as these characters are easy enough to relate to.

Scarfies immediately draws comparison with Shallow Grave and rightly so as both are similar films. I feel that Scarfies is a better film though as it is far less self conscious and much more enjoyable. Like Shallow Grave, Scarfies's script is able to create many moments of effective black comedy and lots of tense and suspenseful situations.

This is quite a good piece of film making which is able to be crowd pleasing and very entertaining with out falling into clichés or contrived happy moments. Scarfies only has one glaring flaw and that is it's rather pat and simplistic ending. The movie's ending is appropriate and it works but it could have so easily been more ambitious and less of a anti-climax. Despite this Scarfies is still a quality New
Zealand film.

3.5 STARS