Monstruos y laberintos

I'm a longtime gamer and a lover of trash movies. I had heard of this film before, but not much about it. So, i took the plunge and rented Mazes and Monsters. I laughed 'til i nearly cried. many have commented upon the bad acting and low budget.. yes, it's bad, but i think that in at least the cases of Hanks and Makepeace the problem was not a poor performance (though by no means stellar) but that the actors had so little to work with anyway.

The gaming scenes are absurd even if you know little about gaming. For example, although the most classic gamer paraphernalia, polyhedral dice, are displayed, they don't seem to be used in the game. note also a serious lack of junk food at the table.

anyone who has ever played a tabletop RPG will know that some folks do get awfully wrapped up in their characters, but i doubt anyone has ever been as far removed from reality as Robbie. is this an attempt at propaganda, or simply to cash in on a faddish wave of hostility? i'd say somewhere in between, but leaning toward cash-in.

this mentality may have once been a threat to gaming, but time has borne out the weakness of the arguments against it. walking down the street, or drinking tap water is far more dangerous.

who would enjoy this movie? i'd recommend it to gamers with a sense of humor, camp lovers, and anyone wanting a more complete historical perspective of Hanks and company. if you're looking for exciting action, logical plot, or serious drama, choose something else. for farcical humor, give it a go.. it should be cheap fun.

Man, this movie makes me miss the days when gamers were viewed by the general public with unease and fear. The best gaming happened then. These days, there are no cautionary tales of gaming gone awry. Instead they make fun of gamers on shows like "Jesse" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". Time has stripped away the fun of doing something that your parents worry about and just left the "geek" stigma. I'll bet that 90+% of the people who have viewed this film are actually gamers themselves. I will also bet that those same people have watched this movie more than once. It's a guilty pleasure. How many times have I heard a fellow gamer say "Frelig jumps into the pit, what does Frelig find?", or have said it myself? It has added to the jargon of gamers. I've heard gamers refer to someone as having "Gone Pardu" when they are getting a bit too much into their role-playing hobbies. Though I have yet to rescue a fellow gamer off a skyscraper after he has been stabbing "Gorbils" in the subway. My Best-Friend's parents actually made him watch this movie to try to scare him away from gaming when he was a teen. They didn't actually watch the movie. They just taped it, and showed it to him and didn't stick around. Boy, his Dad was horrified with the results. Instead of turning my friend off of gaming, it turned him onto to Live Action Role-Playing. Within a few years he founded the LARP group Adventures in Mid-Land in NY. A group that still exists under new leadership a decade and a half later. How many others were inspired to LARP because of this film? If you enjoy this film you should also check out the following movies. "Shakma" is a film starring Roddy McDowell as GM who's live action game goes horribly wrong when a crazed baboon starts killing his players (Don't you hate when that happens?). When billed in channel guides it is typically listed as "A game of Dungeons & Dragons turns deadly". Uh oh, Mom and Dad, another cautionary tale. Then there is the OTHER Wendy Crewson anti-gaming film "Skullduggery". With both Mazes and Monsters and Skullduggery to her credit, you have to wonder what this lady has against us gamers. Skullduggery is so incredibly bad it deserves to be on MST3K. If you are a gamer and a fan of bad films (and what are the odds of that?) you really need to track those two films down. Quick listing of other movies that have some anti-game statement. "Cloak & Dagger", "T.A.G. the Assasination Game", "Gotcha! (1985)" and for our S.C.A. friends there is George Romero's "Knightriders". The film "The Dungeonmaster" with Richard Moll is NOT a gaming movie, despite the title. It is side-splittingly bad though. There is also the book "The Dungeon Master: The Disappearance of James Dallas Eggbert III" by William Dear. It's the true story of how the author's search for a missing college student. The author is a P.I. and focuses his search around the missing kid's D&D hobby. He ignores other aspects of trouble in the kid's life, like the kid's drug problem and instead hangs out to play D&D and get into this kid's head. In the end James Dallas Eggbert III is found in a crack house with no help from the author. The cover of the book lead people to believe yet again that D&D is bad for you, when the reality of it is that being a 16 year old genius in college with drug problems, homosexual tendencies and the name Eggbert would overwhelming for anyone, gamer or not. James Dallas Eggbert Committed suicide before the book came out. William Dear had the TV show "Matt Houston" based on him. They even had an episode play very Loosely on the Eggbert story.

If you look at all of these tales, fictitious or true, the game itself is never really to blame. In Mazes & Monsters it's Robbie's issues with guilt over a missing brother that caused his insanity, not the game itself.

As a role-player myself I'm in the minority because I actually quite like this movie. Most gamers seem to dislike it as it negatively portrays the hobby, but I say look past that and watch what can be an entertaining drama. Sure it gets a little long winded once the main character goes a little nuts, but stick with it and you haven't wasted your viewing time. The acting is a little ropey but then thats what I expect from a TV movie, and everyone (even Tom Hanks) has to start somewhere. I have never seen the original book, but I'd certainly like to read it and see how it measures up.

This movie is a classic. OK not in the "what a masterpiece" sense or the "what a great undiscovered gem" sense but more along the lines of "Oh my God I am gonna pee my pants laughing at this early 80s fear-mongering flick which happens to feature a young and bewildered Tom Hanks." This is right up there with "Plan 9 from Outer Space" or "Reefer Madness." Not a movie to take seriously AT ALL, just a nice slice of Reagen-era silliness for your Sunday afternoon perusal. If you haven't seen it, it is well worth rooting out, though I fear you won't "get" the beauty of it if you are not a thirtysomething former nerd who lived through the "D&D is a product of Satan and responsible for warping my child's fragile mind" eighties. Then again people are making the same complaints about "Grand Theft Auto" and "Hitman" so perhaps it still holds its charm...

"Mazes and Monsters" attempts to capitalize on the then-hot role-playing game trend with a sensationalistic, cliche-ridden script suggesting that such games inevitably lead players into madness, despair, and suicide. So, sadly, can dismal TV-movies. But this one has an added bonus: An extremely pre-Oscar Tom Hanks.

Camp-friendly fans of Hanks should not miss this film. Fresh off the comparatively Shakespearian "Bosom Buddies," Mr. Hanks tries his best to tackle the material. Unfortunately, the implausible scenes and unintentionally hilarious dialogue soon overtake him, though he soldiers on bravely. If you enjoyed Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Hercules In New York," you'll enjoy Hanks in "Mazes and Monsters." Extensive scenes set in and around the World Trade Center are especially strange in retrospect. It's a terrible film, but Hanks' immense charm--and his ample mystical-hooey dialog--are worth the price of admission, especially in this "Lord Of The Rings"-friendly era.