I love watching movies where mazes and labyrinths are a key part of the movie. They usually make for some great maze movies. But there are also movies like The Funhouse Massacre and The Maze. So where does this TV movie from 1982 starring Tom Hanks rank ? I mean Tom Hanks is in it, it must be good !
Mazes and Monsters premiered on TV just after Christmas in 1982. This was a time when Dungeons and Dragons was becoming very popular (and in researching this it happens this game changes in popularity often) and the movie tried to play off of that. This was also a time when parents started to become worried about demonic influences in games/tv/video games that eventually led to congressional hearings.
The movie revolves around 4 college friends who play M&M together. One night they vote to play their next game inside the local caverns to add some excitement to the game. Of course things don’t go as planned, monsters begin appearing in dreams, and one of the players gets lost in the caverns (they are like a maze). Eventually the police begin searching for missing player but the caverns are difficult to search….
But this movie is NOT about some plot, it is about a moral that the viewer must learn and that is- Playing Mazes and Monsters (or in real life D&D) leads to dangerous and disturbing behavior (see what I did there, D&D) in players and mental health problems. Parents, be careful in what you allow your children to play/watch.
For Tom Hanks, this was his 6th ever credit as an actor, right after some single episode work on Taxi and Happy Days, and before a 3 episode run on Family Ties. But by March of 1984, 15 months after this TV movie first aired Hanks got his break in film by appearing with Daryl Hannah in Splash. As of this writing, Mazes and Monsters is considered the worst rated movie or show Tom Hanks was ever in !!! Don’t fight it, avoid this movie !!!!
OR. You can check out this short video: