Mystery Team

What happens when playground detectives reach senior year and never actually grow up? That's the joke behind Mystery Team (2009), the absurd crime comedy you can watch online on iFILM. It's the first feature from the internet sketch troupe Derrick Comedy, directed by Dan Eckman.

Jason, Duncan and Charlie made their name at age seven cracking neighborhood "cases" — who put a finger in the pie, who stole a bike. Now they're eighteen, about to leave high school, and still working from a plywood table doing kid-stuff sleuthing that everyone around them has long outgrown. Then a little girl hires them to solve a real one: the double murder of her parents. The trio, armed with magnifying glasses and secret codes, wanders straight into drugs, strip clubs and actual criminals while keeping a perfectly childish poker face.

The big draw is an early Donald Glover (long before Atlanta) and Aubrey Plaza near the start of her career, and the whole thing runs on the clash between innocent detective tricks and genuinely grimy adult ugliness. The humor is niche and sometimes flat-out deranged, so it won't land for everyone — but fans of absurdist, cringe-edged comedy will quote it for days. Stream Mystery Team (2009) online on iFILM.