The Maze (2010) Movie Review

I try to watch any movie that has a maze or labyrinth as an important part of the story. Usually that means some great maze movies like the ones I reviewed last year. I mean who doesn’t love the great world of Ready Player One, Inception, or Pan’s Labyrinth ? Of course, not all movies are good, ...um The Funhouse Massacre ? So where does The Maze come out ? Let’s find out….

The Maze (IMDB) (Amazon)

The Maze 2010 movie poster

The Maze is a low budget horror film that follows a group of friends who decide it would be a good idea to play a game of tag in a corn maze at night. Unfortunately for them there is a killer in a red hoodie stalking the group of friends inside the maze. The nice part about the setting of the movie, besides being in a maze is that the setting does mean you don’t always notice the low budget. But those times are few and far between, because you will definitely notice the quality of the production.

As with most horror movies there is a twist at the end, but you will see it coming. Overall, I would put this as slightly worse than The Funhouse Massacre and I would avoid this movie aggressively. If you want to spend time with it, this trailer should be enough !! Yes, the quality of the trailer is poor, but that is what this movie deserves.

The Funhouse Massacre (2015) Movie Review

Why would I be reviewing a movie from 2015 now ? Well all of this staying-at-home means I have been watching a lot of streaming movies and shows…and well, I seem to be out of things to watch. Like my Que and Watch-lists got cleared out, and so I created new ones, then those got cleared out. So here we are, I’m looking for maze movies to watch. And there are some great maze movies out there, but this is not one of them.

The Funhouse Massacre (IMDB) (Amazon)

The Funhouse Massacre movie poster

So The Funhouse Massacre is a comedy horror film heavy on gore and light on comedy. Let’s start with the comedy. There are many lines that are meant to be funny, and for whatever reason, poor delivery, bad jokes, they just seem to just fall flat. I found myself noticing throughout the film, oh they thought that was funny. And that. And that. They were wrong. I did almost chuckle twice and thought - that was close.

The horror portion of the film is built around a great premise. It’s Halloween night and in a small town in Ohio during which there is a grand opening of a new Halloween fun-house. It just so happens that day a group of psychopaths break out of a nearby asylum and take over the fun-house unbeknownst to the customers. When customers do enter the fun-house they comment multiple times - oh my gosh that looks so real as previous customers are torn apart, tortured, and slashed. The film goes heavy on the gore to make things scarier. Also there is an evil clown, because of course there is, and an evil dentist (same same but different). Eventually the characters you are following begin to become victims and realize what is happening. They try to warn others who say - “wow that looks so real”.

Eventually we get a courageous fight back and a few plot twists leading to a final confrontation. But wait they aren’t dead the first time because this is a horror film, ok now they are dead. But wait after the credits now maybe they still aren’t dead and maybe there will be a sequel. Fade to Black. You’ve seen it before.

The nice part about this movie is, other than an appearance by Robert Englund, is that it can always be found streaming for free somewhere. So you won’t feel any guilt turning it off before it is over just because you paid for it. And after 90 minutes (ok, maybe 10) you might realize, like me, that despite taking place in a maze, this isn’t a very good maze movie.

Tribute to Pac-Man, the Ultimate Maze Game

How does Pac-Man, the classic video game end up on a website about mazes ? Well Pac-Man takes place in a maze. It is considered one of the first maze chase games - a genre it popularized that quickly expanded to over 100 games.

12 reasons why Pac-Man was iconic:

  1. It created the first recognizable video game character

    Before Pac-Man you drove a tank, car, spaceship, plane or paddle. There were not characters that you cared about, only things you used.

  2. It was embraced by female gamers

    Before Pac-Man most games were war, strategy, and racing and were mostly played by males. When Pac-Man was introduced 60% of the players were female.

  3. It popularized the chase maze genre of video games

    Pac-Man wasn’t the first maze chase game, but it’s popularity made the playing style popular and quickly led to copycat games.

  4. It was an original hunter becomes the hunted game

    The tension of being chased by ghosts quickly flips to hunting ghosts when you eat that power pellet. Great gaming.

  5. It crossed over into popular culture and became collectible

    With an animated TV Show (IMDB), a hit song, lunchboxes, toys, and cereal to name a few things. In fact there were so many items and it became so popular in pop culture has made Pac-Man products highly collectible:

    Pac-Man Collectibles by Deborah Palicia

  6. The ghosts in Pac-Man are the first example of AI in a video game

    Each of the four ghosts have different and consistent AI behaviors. Blinky, the red ghost is always chasing you and speeds up once you’ve eaten so many dots in each level. Pinky (pink), tends to move counterclockwise around blocks and looks to ambush you. Inky (blue) moves sporadically. Clyde (orange), rarely approaches you.

  7. Ms Pac-Man was the (almost) original girl power

    Ms Pac-Man was the 2nd playable female video game character when she debuted in Feb 1982 (Lady Bug’s debut was Oct 1981). But, she was definitely the most famous.

  8. Ms Pac-Man was one of the first video game sequels

    And like The Empire Strikes Back, it was better than the original. It also featured 4 different mazes vs. one for Pac-Man.

  9. It is rooted in simplicity, like many early great games.

    Eat all the dots. Avoid the ghosts. With that anyone is up to speed and can quickly play the game.

  10. It created the cut scene/intermission in a game.

    As the first game to feature cut scenes, it helped make Pac-Man a relatable character and gave life to him and his family, including Ms Pac-Man.

  11. It was the first game to inspire a guidebook:

    Mastering Pac-Man by Ken Uston. Learn the Pac-Man patterns and you can play for a long time !!!!

  12. It helped standardize that each level was more difficult than the last

Fun facts I learned when researching Pac-Man:

  • Atari manufactured 12 million video game cartridges for the Atari 2600 system despite not having sold that many systems to play them on yet. They eventually sold only 7 of the 12 million cartridges. So 5 million Pac-Man games needed to be destroyed.

  • Pac-Man was originally called Puck Man in Japan (because he looks like a puck), but when it came to the US they changed the name fearing vandalism to the game. I found the Miss Puckman game below on a trip to The Netherlands !

Miss Puckman Arcade Game

Miss Puckman Arcade

  • Pac-Man is considered the highest grossing arcade game in history @ $2.5 Billion dollars in quarters ! Maybe most impressive is $1 billion of that was spent in the first year alone.

  • The first perfect game was completed in 1999 by Billy MItchell, exposing the screen bug on screen #256 (called the kill screen) and the highest possible score of 3,333,360.

  • Pac-Man’s design inspiration came from a pizza missing a slice.

  • Pac-Man’s name was inspired by the Japanese onomatopoeia ( a word that sounds like what it is describing) for “munch” and “chomp”, Paku-Paku

  • There is a secret hiding spot in the maze where the ghosts cannot find you if they aren’t looking at you. Do you know where it is ?

Pac-Man Maze
download the maze

Entombed, the Scrolling Maze Video Game from 1982

In the 1982 during the height of arcades jammed with people trying to play another maze game, Pac-Man, Atari came out with a scrolling maze game called Entombed. It seems to be an attempt to capitalize on the maze/chase game play of Pac-Man but with the bonus of a scrolling screen !!! It was not very popular. At one point you could buy it for 82% off based on the picture of the box front I found.

Entombed video game package

Entombed appears to be on sale for $3.99 from $22.99. 82% off !!

The story of Entombed the game is you are an archaeologist and have fallen into catacombs filled with zombies. You need to get away from them without getting stuck in a dead end (and thus entombed). I guess dead end has a new meaning here. There is also a “Make-break” block and if you capture it you are able to make a wall or break thru a wall - great for escaping those pesky zombies. Personally I prefer Daryl’s crossbow or Michonne’s katana, but a make-break is fine. The longer you survive the faster the gameplay becomes as was pretty standard with games from this time.

The interesting aspect of the game is that because of the amount of data needed to generate mazes was too big to be stored on the hardware an algorithm was written that generates a maze on the fly as the game is played. That means each time you play the game the maze will be different ! Pretty ingenious.

There has also been a collegiate paper done exploring the history of the game and discussing the reverse engineering of the game by John Ayock and Tara Copplestone called Entombed:An archaeological examination of an Atari 2600 game. It is an interesting, but technical 33 page read.

The graphics of the game look very 1982. And the gameplay appears to be….well….. also very 1982. I guess it would become more interesting with 2 players playing at the same time ?

Here is a look at some game play from The No Swear Gamer:

So if you want to enjoy mazes in video game form, try this classic game from 1982….or maybe just go with Pac-Man. Either one. But, Pac-Man.

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