Mazes and Monsters (1982)

Truly Dreadful Film

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

"Mazes and Monsters" deals with a group of college students that are involved in a game of pen and paper. When the normal setting can't satisfy them any longer, they move it into a closed cavern. There, things spiral out of control and one player even goes missing. Will the others be able to rescue him? This is one of the earliest Tom Hanks movies. In general I liked the concept of a player running wild, even though the events depicted in the film come a bit out of the blue sometimes. The dangers of pen and paper games are of course hugely exaggerated to an almost comical amount and it is quite cute to see how afraid the public seems to have been about the topic. Maybe it had been of benefit if it was unknown to the audience what happened before the insanity breaks in, this way a bit more of a thrill would be included.All in all this is surely not the strongest movie but it is enough for a one-time watch and not really boring. A can-see, if only for a very young Tom Hanks, but not a must.

When I was a kid (I'm talking elementary school here folks) I used to play a lot of Dungeons and Dragons with my older brother. It was pretty fun but it was the kind of thing one could sort of grow out of over time. When I was in college I realized one of my roommates was big into D & D and somehow we got to talking about how demonized it was in the eighties and early nineties because soccer moms somehow thought it was evil and sacrilegious. This led to him telling me about "Chick Tracts" (those comics written and illustrated by religious nutjob Jack Chick that depict Dungeons and Dragons as being a satanic cult game) which led to him telling me about Mazes and Monsters. He said it was one of the worst things he had ever seen and he talked about how he genuinely hated it and he warned me against ever seeing it but the more I found out about the movie the more hilariously bad it sounded and I got to a point where I just HAD to track it down. Thanks to Netflix I was able to track this glorious film down and I have to say as a drama it fails spectacularly but as a comedy film it's an all-time classic. The over-the-top acting (even from Hanks), the overly geeky and stereotypical characters and the really awful effects and rubber monsters just make this movie a truly spectacular gem of a film. Seriously. If you love the "so bad they're awesome" kinds of movies you'd see on Mystery Science Theater and you want to get a good laugh out of how stupid conservative parents in the eighties went after D & D of all things, this movie is for you. It excels in so many ways as comedy gold.

Mazes And Monsters is a film about two controversies... the first very much of it's time, the second (not of it's own making) would only be apparent decades later. Let's get the more recent one out of the way: there is a lengthy scene set in the now destroyed World Trade Centre. This is probably enough to stop it ever being shown on American television ever again. No big loss there, let me assure you.The main thrust of the story though, regards Dungeons And Dragons (Name changed to avoid a long courtroom battle), which was a huge craze back then, only matched by the paranoia of parents and preachers who thought it encouraged Satanism and campaigned voraciously against it. All stuff and nonsense of course, but nowhere near as daft as what is on display here... as Tom Hanks loses his mind, and goes on a quest to find his long-lost brother.Whether the movie blames his mental breakdown on the board game or views it as an innocent party (The same way a bit of Grand Theft Auto wouldn't lead you to steal cars and mow old ladies over, unless you had something pretty sick lurking inside you already) I don't know. What I am quite certain of is that Mr Hanks would love to round up every copy of this junk, attach a large weight to it and hurl them down into the Bottomless Pit Of Dross, never to be seen again.I mean, let's look at what he gets up to. He starts having a few fun sessions of fantasy role-playing with his friends, and starts a relationship with a fellow female gamer. But before he knows it, his mates have got tired of the tabletop version, and transplant it to a REAL LIFE setting... in some conveniently nearby abandoned caverns. Here's where Hanks goes completely loco: During a particularly intense moment in the dark while playing, he reimagines himself as his fictional character: a 9th level priest. He breaks up with his girlfriend to be 'pure', gives away all his possessions and starts blessing everyone. Then, one Halloween night... he just disappears.Where has he gone? Why, New York of course... in search of the mythical Twin Towers (and yes, that IS a Tolkien reference) to hurl himself off the top. Along the way, he stabs a mugger to death he thinks is a monster, and gets directions from a hobo whom he believes is The King Of France. It's just like a giant reinterpretation of Knightmare... except, the dungeoneer is a complete fruit loop. This is all very, very silly... but played totally straight by Hanks & Co, who may be labouring under the misapprehension they're making a serious cautionary tale. I think one look at the rather sorry finished article may be enough to change their deluded minds.In different hands, this may have had some saving grace as a cult film... but most of the time it's just deathly dull, and the moments that aren't are too stupid even to be appreciated by lovers of camp. AND STOP PLAYING THAT GODAWFUL LOVE SONG WHICH HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING IN THE MOVIE ALREADY!! When Hanks retires, and his colleagues hold a reception in his honour..., expect clips of this to end up in a compilation of his 'best work'... you know, as kind of an inside joke. Hanks's reaction? He'll smile, laugh and move swiftly on. Being the consummate professional he is. But really, he'll be absolutely mortified. Never mind Tommo, we've all gotta start somewhere... 3/10

Somehow I missed this movie when it came out, and didn't see it until about twelve years later. I bought it based on the cover copy, which seemed to indicate a fun fantasy movie: D&D player ends up in a fantasy world. It never occurred to me that they meant "fantasy" literally.HOWEVER, a lot of people have been unfairly attacking this movie for years, claiming that it espouses the "dangers" of role-playing.FACT: Tom Hanks' character is established to have psychological problems from the beginning of the movie, including an inability to separate fantasy and reality.FACT: This psychologically unstable character is the only one to have this problem.FACT: The rest of the players use problem-solving skills they developed from role-playing to save his life.Far from showing the dangers of role-playing, I thought this movie did a good job of showing the kind of deductive and inductive reasoning that can be developed by using your imagination.I think it did at least as good a job of defending role-playing as it did attacking it.