Nemesis Game

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * *)

The story behind this thriller is that two young New Zealand film-makers - director Jesse Warn and producer Matthew Metcalfe - went out into the world with their script and got themselves an international New Zealand-English-Canadian co-production deal, a largely North American cast and a Toronto location.

Full marks for enterprise. However, the resulting film is hardly an unqualified triumph.

It's a B-flick attempting to play A-flick mind games with a plot that is riddled quite literally with riddles.

Philosophy student Sarah Novak (Pope) is dragged into a shadowy world of riddle-solving games by comic store guy Vern (Paul).

Her search for the meaning of life has something to do with the death of her mother a few years later, something her father can't help her with, especially as he's busy with a murder case where the chief suspect is the possibly unhinged Emily Gray (Owen), whose interrogation answers suggest she's above all the normal rules due to some sort of divine revelation.

Of course, Sara's adventures in riddle-land soon intersect with her father's investigation of what might be a murderous cult, who like nothing better than spray-painting brainteasers to each other on the dimly lit walls of abandoned buildings.

But it all gets a bit knotted in its own dreadfully Zen explanations for just about everything, and it can feel like a low-budget pastiche of creepfests such as The Game, Seven, The Ring and - at its admittedly most terrifying moment - The Blair Witch Project.

It does manage to generate some tension, but its riddle-solving plot device undercuts its cerebral intentions with too many puzzlers that are less than mentally taxing.

Add some leaden dialogue and ropy acting - a scary Owen excepted - and Nemesis Game poses its own question: what do you call a thriller which doesn't thrill?

Cast: Carly Pope, Adrian Paul, Rena Owen Director: Jesse Warn Rating: M (violence,offensive language) Running time: 92 mins Screening: Rialto, Bridgeway