Scarfies (1999)

Released in the US as Crime 101, Robert Sarkies’ feature debut is black comedy with emphasis on the black.

Five students at Dunedin’s Otago University find a seemingly abandoned house and decide it is the perfect flat – no rent, free electricity…and a basement full of marijuana plants. It doesn’t take long for the group to decide to become amateur drug lords and sell the drugs.

Of course someone is going to miss $50 000 worth of drugs, and it isn’t long before the house owner comes snooping around for his property. The only thing the terrified flatmates can think to do is trap him in the basement. Which is obviously not going to go well for anyone concerned…