Tom Hanks’ First Movie Was Cringey Anti-D&D Propaganda

Then in the closing scene, the gang visits Robbie at his parents’ house and discovers that he still thinks he’s inside of the game, kind of nullifying that whole cathartic climax that happened like literally a minute ago. And for all we know, his delusions eventually lead him to believe that he’s a sentient cowboy doll, or a World War II captain, or the conductor of a magical Christmas train with the eyes of a haunted mannequin.

Yeah it’s … not a good movie. But it’s not an inconsequential one, either, not just because it was the first to star Hanks but because of its contribution to the irrational backlash against Dungeons & Dragons and to the larger “Satanic Panic” of the ’80s—you know, that crazy time when parents saw the devil’s influence in everything from heavy metal music to kindergarten classrooms to He-Man and the Masters of the Universe toys. Which would be funny, except for the fact that it really wasn’t. Plus this shit never truly stopped, it just evolved into contemporary conspiracy theories like Pizzagate and QAnon.

The makers of Mazes and Monsters weren’t the only ones fearmongering about D&D, a game in which the only real threat involves choking on a mouthful of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, or perhaps spraining your wrist while casting a spell using twenty-sided dice. They weren’t even the only ones to fictionalize the story of James Egbert; there was a novel called Hobgoblin and even another movie, 1983’s Skullduggery, which weirdly enough also featured Wendy Crewson, and was also shot in Toronto, although it offered a more supernatural interpretation of events. More recently, Riverdale dedicated an entire season-long arc to a tabletop game called Gryphons and Gargoyles that, in a fashion not wholly dissimilar from Mazes and Monsters, weirdly kind of validated the hysteria of the ’80s.

Making this all extra gross, a year after he was located, Egbert shot and killed himself. That was in 1980, a full year before the fraudulent interpretation of this actual person’s pain and suffering was used as the basis for a paperback thriller, and two years before it was turned into a CBS movie of the week.

The only reason why this specific movie is remembered at all is purely because of Hanks, whose celebrity in the ’90s led to multiple home video releases of the forgotten film with increasingly misleading VHS covers. And despite the fact that the movie is a hot pile of flaming medical waste, Hanks’ charms still mostly shine through. This dumb movie, which crapped all over a real-life tragedy and helped fuel a toxic cultural movement, launched one of the most successful movie careers in Hollywood history. In other words, we might not have gotten Sleepless in Seattle or Apollo 13 if it weren’t for the Gorvil.

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Top Image: Trinity Home Entertainment, CBS