Speaking of trash books, here’s the VHS of Mazes and Monsters, the 1982 TV scare-your-parents movie based on Rona Jaffe’s garbage scare-your-parents book of the same title, in turn based loosely on the events of the James Dallas Egbert not-at-all-involving-D&D disappearance in 1979. It is most notable for being Tom Hanks’ first big role. It is less than notable for anything else. Seriously, it is bad. We did a podcast on it not too long ago if you really want to find out how bad.
Actually, the VHS box (sent to me by a particularly malicious friend) does a pretty good job of illustrating how bad it is. That cover art…admittedly, pretty good – that represents your hopes. But if you flip it over (or swipe to the next photo) you see the kids in the cheap costumes from the movie and all hope should drain out of you. Front: promise. Back: what it delivers. That’s pretty much all you need to know about Mazes and Monsters.
I honestly have a fondness for this film, partly due to the so-bad-it’s-good quality of the script (“Mazes and Monsters is a far-out game”, anyone?), and partly due to the fact that it actually got several of my friends into playing D&D. The setup for the friends’ regular M&M game is admittedly superb, with handcrafted maps, paper miniatures, and candlelit ambiance—we should all be so lucky! I also appreciate the first-ed simplicity of the gameplay depicted in the film; insta-death traps with no saving throws? Ah, those were the days…