First off, 'Crime Wave' is low budget, with lots of poor acting (except for the okay main parts played by Paizs and Kovacs, with an extra mention for the crazy 'cowboy' played hilariously by Neil Lawrie) and a cheap look, let's get that out of the way for those who might expect otherwise. But Paizs makes up for it with lots of creativity and humor, i.e. the motif of film segments of beginnings and endings, the focus on the relationship between Steven and Kim and the bit with the optical illusion. Thoroughly fun stuff, and I may have even missed out on some clever jokes, as I watched this for the first time without subtitles. Still, I wouldn't give it more than a small 7 out of 10 thus far.Then, the last half hour really takes off (just about when the characters from Penny's stories come alive in the attic), and the comparison to Lynch becomes even more clear; after the hyper-reproduction of American (well, er, Canadian...) life in the first part which made think of 'Blue Velvet', that crazy cowboy forcing his 'twist' on writer Steven Penny seems to have directly influenced Lynch's 'Mulholland Dr.' - but I have never heard or read about that before, so who knows? In any case that last part is a true cinematic roller coaster ride, where even Jesus is found. Low budget? Who cares.And for that wonderful last part, I'm giving it one point extra; 8 out of 10. By the way: in some ways 'Crime Wave' seems like a children's film, but actually there are plenty of details and adult references to make it not quite so. Nevertheless, or, all the more reason to: give this one a try if you get the chance!

Most importantly for a comedy, Crime Wave is very funny. It's a masterpiece of black humor, with one twisted laugh out loud sight gag after another (I have too many favorites: the kid with the empty birdcage, the morgue tags, Ronnie up against the telephone pole, Steven's costume for the Halloween party, the drooping penis plant painting on a background wall, etc.). It's a comedy, but like Lynch's Blue Velvet, it also takes a retro 50s "normalcy" and reveals how bizarre, threatening, and, in the episode with Dr. Jolly, how downright creepy events can become within it. Paiz also shares Lynch's ability to make regular objects like street lamps feel stranger than they are. So, Paiz can't avoid comparisons as a sort of Lynch-lite. But he's also a grand surrealist who concocts layers of realities within realities. Budding screenwriter Steven Penny writes the starts and endings of scripts but can't seem to fill in the middles (layer 1). We are shown "clips" of what Steven has written as though they had been filmed (layer 2). While the scripts lie in limbo waiting to be finished, their characters "come alive" and hang out in Steven's room and fight with each other (layer 3). Steven doesn't narrate his own story, in fact he doesn't talk at all, and the film is seen and narrated through the viewpoint of Kim (wonderfully played by Eva Kovacs), the young teen daughter of Steven's landlords, who comes to admire and help Steven. Meeting one odd character after another in one strange event after another, Kim's blaze, take-whatever-comes attitude anchors the film in yet another reality (layer 4). And, she speaks directly to the camera, the "objective" film, to us, the audience (layer 5).Eventually Steven writes a script about Steven who is a screenwriter who made it big with the scripts we saw before. He opens a Disney-like theme park based on his work featuring those characters. Still, he feels at a personal loss until he meets and is redeemed by no one less than Jesus. At this point so many subjective viewpoints have converged that I can't tell you at what layer number we're on (6? 7? 8?) but what I can tell you is that we're in front of some epic inner-connected complex at the level of Borges or Philip K. Dick. As cool, objective, and deadpan in tone & presentation as Crime Wave is, it throws in everything including the kitchen sink (police chases, serial killers, rat infestations, chemical disasters, and so forth). Still, I don't want to give people the wrong impression here. Crime Wave is not a puzzle, nor is it at all confusing or hard to get, it has a straight-forward plot that simply involves a lot of episodes with differing sketch material that, as a whole, ends up covering a lot of ground. If the film has any sort of theme beyond the fun, Crime Wave is ironic about & mocks the lengths people will go through to become successful.Consciously or unconsciously, many have borrowed from Paiz: Lynch in Mulholland Drive, Maddin in Dracula (his "From the East" a direct crib of Paiz's "From the North"), The Coen Brothers in Barton Fink, and Abel Ferrera in Bad Lieutenant (whose main character is also redeemed meeting Jesus). And yet, Paiz, the funniest & most imaginative filmmaker to come out of Canada next to Maddin and Norman McLaren, is but a minor cult figure. Why such injustice? Both he and his great Canadian cult film comedy deserve a much wider audience & recognition.

Just one of those films… you know… that blow your mind, stick in your head for a year and makes all others movies look like over budget Hollywood crap. It's like watching pure imagination! One piece of advice: Stop working now and start looking for it. I found a used VHS of it years ago and since then, I can say the world dosen't look the same anymore. The top: only few people made it, and John Paizs is one of them.I know it may sound a little bit crazy but seriously, if you love movies that make you wonder how can someone could possibly think of that, give it a try.

I happened to catch part of Crime Wave on CBC late one night in the 80s and I was hypnotized by it's underground feel and truly offbeat humor. Then I didn't think about it again for about fifteen years until I came across a used copy in a video store that was going out of business. I have watched it a few times and each time my eyes widen like a little child. John Paizs as Steven Penny is a deadpan delight, future anchorwoman Eva Covacs is perfect as the precocious Kim. And of course there's Dr. Jolly. The cornfield scene is probably the weirdest scene of any film I've ever seen.Overall if you appreciate low-budget comedy miracles, this is a prototype.