Kicking off volume 2 of the ‘Short Sharp shocks’ series from the BFI, I was quite hopeful that ‘Quiz Crime #1’ would be a bit of a lark.

Essentially a ‘whodunnit’ narrated to you by a detective who cracked the case! A thrilling quasi new years treat!

Unfortunately; ‘Quiz Crime’ is a silly thing, that doesn’t play by the rules. What do I mean? Well…prepare to have a 81 year old set of mysteries spoiled…because lord knows you won’t get them yourself.

The first case was one of a man who was found dead and stripped of belongings in the woods. Our detective goes to the Inn he was supposed to have checked into to speak to the bar keeper. Who denies the man ever arrived and invites you to check his room.

Our detective scours the room, plays with some golf clubs, and then arrests the barman and charges him with the murder! How were we supposed to crack the case?! Well! In the room the detective enters, in the background, is a table laid out ready for supper. The detective notes that the golf clubs delivered to the room are for a left handed golfer. And therefore HOW could the barman have KNOWN to set the table for a left handed person IF the victim DIDNT attend the bar!

(Literally, they expect you to have picked up on a blurry background detail that never actually gets brought up to crack the case…)

The second case is an actress who is murdered before her play is set to begin. This time around, I ignored the clues and just picked the first man the detective spoke to…7 minutes later with NON of the clues really making sense…I was right….these were terrible…a nice idea…but terrible.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/quiz-crime-no-1/