Quick show of hands: How many people reading this are demented serial killers? One? Two? Six? It’s hard to say, but if we went by the sensational news reports that frequently aired during the ’80s, then all of us should have firsthand knowledge of the sound a puppy makes when you boil it alive. This is because we grew up watching horror movies and that way — so these reports claimed — inevitably led to mental illness and murder.
If you are a teenager having fun, someone somewhere is making money explaining to concerned parents how the activity you’re enjoying is going to rob you of your sanity and turn you into a demented maniac (or at least someone who doesn’t get into a good college). And chances are someone is going to eventually exploit this concern in a terrible made-for-TV movie. Which brings us to Mazes and Monsters.
In this early Tom Hanks vehicle, the threat to humanity is LARPing (or live-action role playing for those of you who have robust social lives or haven’t seen Role Models). Hanks plays Robby, a troubled college student who joins three other students to play the Dungeons & Dragons-esque title game, only to lose his ability to tell fantasy from reality when they take the game out of the dorm room and into the real world.
The script is as ridiculously overwrought as its plot suggests and eschews any semblance of subtlety in favor of in-your-face obviousness, usually to inadvertently hilarious effect. The gaming equivalent of Reefer Madness, it’s the kind of film you should watch if only to remind you that as crazy and dangerous as the kids may seem today, they’re going to eventually grow up to be as boring and normal as we are now. —Allan Mott