Hi there and welcome to October! This is our favorite time of the year here at the Shattered Lens because October is our annual horrorthon! For the past several years (seriously, we’ve been doing this for a while), we have celebrated every October by reviewing and showing some of our favorite horror movies, shows, books, and music. That’s a tradition that I’m looking forward to helping to continue this year!
Let’s get things started with 1982’s Mazes and Monsters!
Based on a best-seller by Rona Jaffe, Mazes and Monsters tell the story of some college students who enjoy playing a game called Mazes and Monsters. Now, I realize that Mazes and Monsters may sound a lot like Dungeons and Dragons but they are actually two separate games. One game takes place in a dungeon. The other takes place in maze, got it?
When the players decide to play the game in some nearby caves, it causes the newest member of the group (Tom Hanks — yes, Tom Hanks) to snap and become his character. Convinced that he’s living in a world full of monsters and wizard, Hanks runs away to New York. How does that go? During a moment of clarity, Hanks calls his friends and wails, “There’s blood on my knife!”
It’s all fairly silly. There was a moral panic going on about role playing games when this film was made and this film definitely leans into the panic. But, in its own over-the-top way, it works. If you’ve ever wanted to see Tom Hanks battle a big green lizard, this is the film for you. And I defy anyone not to tear up a little during the final scene!
From 1982, here is MazesandMonsters! Happy Horrorthon!
On February 22nd, 1980, the U.S. Olympic Hockey team pulled off one of the greatest upsets in sports history when they defeated the Soviet team during the Winter Olympics. At a time when America was struggling under Jimmy Carter and the Soviet Union appeared to be winning the propaganda war, a group of unheralded college students brought the U.S. together in celebration as they defeated the Soviets and then went on to defeat Finland for the gold medal.
Everyone knows that the Miracle On Ice, as it was called, served as the basis of the Disney film Miracle, with Kurt Russell playing coach Herb Brooks. What is now forgotten is that the story was first recreated in 1981, with a made-for-tv movie called Miracle On Ice. Who played Herb Brooks in that movie?
Karl Malden.
Keep in mind, Herb Brooks was 42 years-old when the U.S. team defeated the Soviets and he was a former player himself. Malden was 69 when he starred in Miracle On Ice and didn’t look like he had ever worn skates in his life. Malden is convincingly grumpy and hard-nosed as Brooks but he’s still very miscast and the movie misses the point that one of the reasons why Brooks could coach the young American team was because he was still relatively young himself. The actors playing the members of the team are better cast, with Andrew Stevens playing team leader Mike Eruzione and Steve Guttenberg cast as goalie Jim Craig. A lot of time is devoted to Craig’s financial difficulties and his fear that remaining an amateur for the Olympics, instead of going pro, will continue to make life difficult for his family. On the one hand, it is messed up that the U.S., at the time, did not allow its Olympians to turn professional. On the other hand, the fact all of the players were considered to be “amateurs’ made their victory over the Soviets all the more special.
It takes a while for MiracleonIce to get to the main event. There’s a lot of scenes of Brooks dealing with everyone’s skepticism and Eurozione trying to keep the players from giving up in the face of the Soviet Union’s previous domination of the game. Once the movie does finally reach the Winter Olympics, it relies on actual footage from the game, which is actually pretty cool. Watching the real footage, you can still feel the growing excitement in both the stadium and the broadcast booth as people started to realize that the American team was going to pull it off and defeat the Soviets. It’s impossible not to be inspired by the Soviet Union getting humiliated by a bunch of American college players. The Soviets may have had the performance enhancing drugs but the Americans had the spirit!
Of the two films about America’s victory, Miracle is definitely the one to see but Miracle On Ice still pays tribute to a great moment.
For today’s horror on the lens, we’ve got the 1982 made-for-TV movie, Mazes and Monsters!
Mazes and Monsters! Sounds pretty scary, doesn’t it? Well, have no fear. Mazes and Monsters is just a role-playing game, one that definitely should not be mistaken for Dungeons and Dragons despite the fact that it’s exactly the same as Dungeons and Dragons. Except, of course, for the fact that one game takes place in a dungeon and the other takes place in a maze.
A group of rich kids love playing Mazes and Monsters but, when they take it a step too far, it leads to the newest member of their group having a nervous breakdown, fleeing to New York City, and fighting demons that only he can see. Our delusional hero is played by an actor named Tom Hanks. Hey, whatever happened to him?
Anyway, Mazes and Monsters is kind of silly. You’re going to get sick of Chris Makepeace’s hats pretty quickly. It imagines a world where the most popular and attractive kids on campus just can’t wait to pretend to be clerics and magic users. And yet, in its own melodramatic way, the film works. If you’ve ever wanted to see Tom Hanks stab a green demon, this is the film to watch! This was one of Tom Hanks’s first roles and he already looks a little bit too old to play a college student but his trademark likability is already evident. When Tom has a moment of clarity and desperately announces that “THERE’S BLOOD ON MY KNIFE!,” it’s impossible for your heart not to ache for him a little. Finally, as over-the-top as the moral panic about the possibility of LARPers going crazy in New York may be, the ending actually is surprisingly effective.
Here! Watch the trailer for the 1983 slasher film, Mortuary!
(It’s the first trailer shown in the video below. Be sure to stick around for the Humongous trailer.)
OH MY GOD! That sure was scary, wasn’t it!? In case you didn’t recognize him, that was beloved horror character actor Michael Berryman getting dragged into that grave. No matter how bad the film was (or is), Michael Berryman was one of those actors who was always worth watching. Based on the trailer, Mortuary has got to be some sort of classic, right?
Well…no.
The trailer’s a classic but, unfortunately, it has nothing to do with the film. This isn’t just a case of scenes from the film being edited into the trailer in such a way that the audience is misled as to what’s actually going on in the movie. Almost all trailers do that…
No, the trailer for Mortuary contains literally no scenes from the actual film. Michael Berryman isn’t even in Mortuary!
But you know who is in the film?
BILL PAXTON!
That’s right … a very young Bill Paxton made his film debut in Mortuary. Even better, he got to play the killer! Now, I know you probably think that I just spoiled the film for you but seriously, Paxton is so obviously the murderer that it doesn’t really count as a spoiler. Paxton plays Paul Andrews, the teenage son of mortician, Hank Andrews (Christopher George). Everyone agrees that Paul is a little bit weird. Or, as someone says in the film, “Paul’s been so strange since his mother committed suicide.” Someone else agrees and then adds that it probably doesn’t help that apparently, Hank used to force Paul to sleep in the mortuary.
In the role of Paul, Paxton gives a very odd performance. I wouldn’t necessarily say that it’s a good performance and, if I ever meet Bill Paxton, I’m not going to bring this movie up. But seriously, Paxton’s performance is so weird that you can’t stop watching him. There’s a scene where he literally skips through a cemetery. He seems to be having fun and good for him!
Paul is a little obsessed with Christie (Mary Beth McDonough). Christie has been having issues since her father’s mysterious drowning. Everyone keeps telling Christie that her father just had an accident in the pool but the audience knows — via the first scene in the film — that her father was only in that pool because someone hit him with a baseball bat. Ever since her father’s death, Christie has been sleep walking and having night terrors. She demands that her boyfriend, Greg (David Wallace), help her find out what really happened to her father.
Greg, however, is still trying to figure out what happened to his best friend, Josh (Denis Mendel). Earlier, Greg and Josh broke into the mortuary so that they could steal a tire. Josh went off on his own and ended up getting stabbed to death with an embalming pipe. Greg never noticed because he was busy spying on what was apparently a black magic ceremony involving Hank and a coven of witches.
And one of the witches was … Christie’s mother, Eve (Lynda Day George)!
When Eve isn’t busy practicing the dark arts, she’s telling her daughter that she needs to get over her father’s death. Is Eve trying to drive Christie crazy? Does Hank know that Paul is homicidal? Will Greg ever figure out that Josh is dead?
And most importantly — will this film feature any disco roller skating!?
YOU BET IT DOES!
I’m probably making Mortuary sound more fun that it actually is. It’s actually a fairly slow-moving slasher film and neither Greg nor Christie are particularly interesting or likable. Still, the film features Bill Paxton skipping in a cemetery and that’s worth something.
If you’re willing to look, you can find Mortuary on YouTube, though I’ve been told that the version that was uploaded was the television version so some things have been cut out.
It’s amazing the things that you find when you randomly search the DVD section of Half-Price Books. For instance, I found a very cheap DVD of the 1982 made-for-TV film Mazes and Monsters and I simply had to buy it.
Why?
Well, just look at the cover above. Look at the ominous castle. Look at the shadowy dragons flying around it. Look at that Shining-style maze. Look at the ominous tag line: “Danger lurks between fantasy and reality.” And especially be sure to look at Tom Hanks gazing serenely over it all.
“Wow,” I thought, “Tom Hanks fights a dragon? This is something that I’ve got to see!”
Well, there are no dragons in Mazes and Monsters. There are a few monsters but they’re only briefly seen figments of Tom Hanks’s imagination. The film is about a group of college students who obsessively play an RPG called Mazes and Monsters. When one of the students (an annoying genius who wears wacky hats and is played by an actor with the surprisingly poetic name of Chris Makepeace) suggests that they play Mazes and Monsters “for real” in some caverns near the college, it leads to Robbie (Tom Hanks) have a mental breakdown. Soon, Robbie is convinced that he’s actually a monk. He breaks up with his girlfriend because he doesn’t want to violate his vow of celibacy. (Of course, the real fantasy is that a college student obsessed with playing Mazes and Monsters would have a girlfriend in the first place but anyway…) He keeps seeing imaginary minotaurs lurking in the shadows. Finally, he runs off to New York on a quest to find “the great Hall.” It’s up to his friends to find him and hopefully impart an important lesson about the dangerous reality of RPG addiction.
Or something.
Listen, to be honest, if not for Tom Hanks, there would be no reason to watch Mazes and Monsters. It’s poorly acted. It’s written and directed with a heavy hand. There’s some nice shots of downtown New York City but otherwise, it’s visually drab.
But, because Tom Hanks is in it and he’s playing a role that demands that he go totally over-the-top in his performance, Mazes and Monsters is totally worth watching. If you’ve ever wanted to see Tom Hanks wander around New York City while dressed like a monk, this is the film for you. If you’ve ever wanted to see Tom Hanks start to tremble while explaining that, as a monk, he’s not allowed to kill minotaurs, this is the movie for you. Most of all, if you’ve ever wanted to see Tom Hanks shrieking, “THERE’S BLOOD ON MY KNIFE!” while standing in an old school phone booth, this is definitely the movie for you!
Seriously.
Considering that Tom Hanks is currently viewed as being some sort of elder statesman of American film (and, even more importantly, Hanks seems to view himself as being some sort of national treasure), there’s something oddly satisfying about seeing him before he became THE Tom Hanks. It’s good to be reminded that, at one time, he was just another young actor doing his best in a crappy made-for-TV movie.
Unlike Desperate Lives, the 1982 melodrama Split Image is available to be viewed on YouTube. In fact, you can watch it below and I suggest that you do so. It’s a pretty good film and, apparently, it’s never been released on DVD or Blu-ray and it’ll probably never be available on Netflix either. So, if you’ve ever wanted to see Peter Fonda play a cult leader, your best bet is to watch the video below.
But before you watch the video, here’s a little information on Split Image, one of the best films that you’ve never heard of.
Essentially, the film follows the same plot as the Canadian film Ticket To Heaven.A college athlete (played by Michael O’Keefe) starts dating a girl (Karen Allen) who is a member of a sinister religious cult. Soon, O’Keefe is a brainwashed member of the cult and only answering to the name of Joshua. (The head of the cult is played, in an appropriately spaced-out manner, by Peter Fonda.) His parents (Brian Dennehy and Elizabeth Ashley) hire a cult deprogrammer (James Woods) to kidnap their son and break Fonda’s hold on him. However, it turns out that Woods’ methods are almost as psychologically destructive as Fonda’s manipulation.
Even if it’s not quite as memorably creepy as Ticket To Heaven, Split Image is still a well-made film, featuring excellent performances from Dennehy, Woods, O’Keefe, and Fonda. However, for me, the most interesting thing about Split Image is that it was largely filmed and set down here in Dallas. Just watch the scene where Woods and his men attempt to kidnap Michael O’Keefe. It was shot on the campus of Richland Community College, which is one of the places where I regularly go to run.
(Interestingly enough, 33 years after the release of Split Image, Richland still looks exactly the same!)
Through the Shattered Lens 