Labyrinth (1986)

My quest for creative and imaginative films that can inspire gamers continues with the sublime Labyrinth from Jim Henson.

With a screenplay by Monty Python's Terry Jones, puppetry from the Jim Henson Creature Shop, designs by Brian Froud, production by George Lucas and music, as well as central performance, by David Bowie... what could go wrong?

In fact, very little. Although, primarily a children's fairy tale, there are still elements that an older, more cynical, eye could possibly view as "inappropriate", such as the Goblin King (Bowie's) expressed feelings for the 16-year-old Jennifer's Connelly's character. But is he telling the truth or just using it as misdirection?

Whatever the case, it gives Labyrinth that darker edge common to the original Grimms' Fairy Tales.

I do wonder also what younger viewers make of some of the stranger, Alice-in-Wonderland-like imagery, particularly the ballroom sequence and the Escher-inspired staircases of the Goblin King's castle. Nevertheless, the film is always engaging and its spectacular visuals only falter occasionally when an aged piece of greenscreening is employed for certain effects.

Connelly plays Sarah, a dreamy teenager annoyed at having to babysit her younger brother Toby who wishes "goblins would come and take him away".

When they do, she goes on a quest through the Labyrinth to reach the castle beyond the goblin city where he is being held by Jareth The Goblin King.

In Dungeons And Dragons terms, while there may be very little actual fighting (until Sarah and her friends arrive at the goblin city), this remains one of the best live-action portrayals of a "dungeon crawl" that I can think of from the 1980s - complete with atmospheric corridors, secret passages, pit traps, talking statues, wandering monsters, etc

Sarah is joined on her adventure by a mixed species party of fellow adventurers including the gnome/dwarf Hoggle, the anthopomorphic fox Sir Didymus and the giant hairy beast Ludo (with the useful 'summon boulders' ability).

This again makes it all an interesting study from the gaming perspective with the different characters bringing different skills to the group and each adding their own dynamic.

As a fairy tale Labyrinth needs a moral and I guess it's about growing up and learning what's important (e.g. friendship and family over material possessions), but also the necessity of retaining a spark of child-like imagination and wonder.

HALLOWEEN HORROR: The Wicker Man (1973)

To balance up the sins of that awful Nic Cage rehash, I thought this was as good a time as any to revisit the peerless 1973 original of The Wicker Man.

Dour, puritanical, West Highland Police sergeant Howie (Edward Woodward) receives an anonymous letter, telling him about the case of a missing girl - Rowan Morrison.

She was supposed to have disappeared on the secluded Summerisle, a remote Hebridean island famed for its popular and unusually abundant fruit produce.

However, when he arrives there, the islanders claim never to have heard of the girl. Even the woman Howie believes is her mother, post mistress May Morrison (Irene Sunter), denies that she's her daughter.

Realising that this investigation isn't going to be an open-and-shut case, Howie takes a room at the island's Green Man Inn, where he meets the landlord's lovely daughter, Willow (Britt Ekland, dubbed by Annie Ross).

Struggling to come to terms with the girl's disappearance evolving into a question of semantics, humourless Howie of the 'fun police' grows increasingly frustrated with the islanders' pagan ways of public nudity, dogging, fertility rituals, singing (there's so many songs in The Wicker Man it could be classed as a musical), dancing etc.

Finding a grave for the missing girl, Howie gains permission from the island's head honcho, the charismatic Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee), to exhume her body... only to find that Rowan's coffin doesn't contain her body.

As May Day draws near, Howie begins to suspect that Rowan isn't really dead, but being held hostage to be used in a pagan sacrifice to ensure that the island's crops don't fail as they did the year before.

Of course, we all know that the machinations of the islanders are far more sinister than that, leading to the classic - and well-known - climax (that doesn't involve bees).

It was my late father who introduced me to The Wicker Man and therefore it has always held a special significance for me.

I watched the director's cut, which had been shown on Film 4, so it had all the bits that had been cut out of the original release (just in lower quality, which is a shame because it makes those scenes draw attention to themselves for the wrong reasons).

Surely, there must be technology now that could restore these low-quality scenes to the standard of the rest of the film? That would be worth sacrificing a few virgins for, right?

It's been too long since I've seen The Wicker Man, despite it being one of my favourite movies (not just in this genre, but of all-time), and I was reminded just how many moments were lifted from it for the more recent remake... and yet that still managed to get so much wrong.

Not a scary horror per se, The Wicker Man is disorientating and unnerving, and its very lack of overt supernatural elements gives it a terrifying verisimilitude that makes you wonder if perhaps such events could still occur in modern times.

And it's always worth being reminded of this:

MONSTER MAYHEM: The Vourdalak (2023)

Having been attacked by Turkish bandits while travelling through an Eastern European forest, French nobleman the Marquis Jacques Antoine Saturnin d'Urfé (Kacey Mottet Klein), an emissary of the King of France, seeks assistance at the isolated home of an elderly man called Gorcha.

The man of the house is absent though and the Marquis instead meets his children: the eldest son, surly Jegor (Grégoire Colin), crossdresser Piotr (Vassili Schneider) and ethereal "fallen woman" Sdenka (Ariane Labed). Also present are Jegor's wife, Anja (Claire Duburcq) and their young son, Vlad (Gabriel Pavie).

The Marquis d'Urfé discovers that the elderly Gorcha left the house six days earlier to go fight the invading Turks, warning that if he returned after six days he would be a "vourdalak" and his family were not to let him in.

The Marquis (Kacey Mottet Klein) and Sdenka (Ariane Labed)

That evening, while the residents of the manor are dining outdoors, Jegor discovers what appears to be the corpse of his father, lying at the edge of the property.

However the old man (voiced by the film's writer and director Adrien Beau) is alive. Kind of.

This is where things start to get really weird. Despite Jegor's refusal to believe in folk stories, his father, Gorcha, is, indeed a vourdalak, an undead corpse-like being that's part vampire, part ghoul, that thrives by feeding on its loved ones (rather than random strangers).

However, that's not the weirdest part of this darkly, atmospheric Gothic French movie. It's the fact that Gorcha is portrayed by a life-sized skeletal puppet (also operated by Adrien Beau), with a limited range of movement.

Luckily, I had been forewarned about this fact, as it comes as quite a surprise when it pops up in this grounded, period piece, set in the 18th Century.

Yet oddly, once you've adjusted your brain to the idea that the antagonist of this claustrophobic horror tale isn't an actor in a rubber suit or a CGI creation, it is a rather effective depiction of a creature that's alien to our reality and yet was once human.

This isn't Muppet Christmas Carol territory, but something much creepier and more unnerving (more so even than the spooky Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come).

Coming in at under 90-minutes duration, The Vourdalak is a fascinating French-language work of oppressive horror, where the tension ratchets up methodically to a gory climax.

What could have come across as a "silly experiment" on paper, is, in actuality, an eerie and atmospheric movie about a largely unseen supernatural predator preying on his own family, trapped on their own estate by both familial loyalty and fear of the Turkish invaders.

While our POV character, the foppish Marquis starts the tale as "powdered courtier" and a bit of an ass, his story arc sees him grow a backbone - partly motivated by his attraction to Sdenka - to just about become the tale's hero.

Based up the 19th Century novel The Family of the Vourdalak, by Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy (second cousin of  the more famous Leo Tolstoy), the film is an interesting twist on the ubiquitous vampire mythology and is worth watching for that alone.