Dungeons & Dragons & Mazes & Monsters & Chastity

I’ve wanted to write an old 1980s-style Satanic Panic story for a while. Meaning a story where something like a D&D game goes off the rails into “real-life” horror. A big, fun, dumb, fantasy-goes-awry, heads-get-larped-off ride.

My sense, going in, was that a story of this kind is automatically tongue-in-cheek — because its goal isn’t to scare the audience of people who know games, but instead to have fun with how ridiculous the people are who don’t know games. Your Pat Robertson types — your Mike Pence, your Jerry Falwell Jr — every Chastity Pariah out there, right? The thousand little-minded crisis-mongering wierdos who have somehow got themselves into positions of power, and want to tell you that the Forces of Evil lurk inside a game. Or a heavy metal song. Or a vaccine. Or Nas X’s sneakers. It seems like Satanic Panic is making a comeback in real life, and that’s what prompted me to finally try my SP today — When the Dice Roll Your Way, When the Eyes of Death Blink.

Obviously this story wouldn’t exist without Margret’s childhood memories of D&D — but it also wouldn’t exist without an awareness of every real-life Chastity Pariah out there. These stories really exist more because of the Pariahs. Because the real-life Margrets know there’s nothing to be afraid of — their game means just sitting around a table BSing with friends, as what else are you going to do between now and the end of the road? But Chastity Pariah takes her fantasies much more seriously. Doesn’t she.

Chastity Pariah, cinema’s greatest moral scold, courtesy of Elvira: Mistress of the Dark.

In an early draft of this story, there was a paragraph that put a Chastity more directly in the mix. I cut it because it was not necessary to the story. But I liked it, so here it is:

Margret thought back to why she stopped playing in 1983. When her pastor began to fixate. Began to talk every Sunday about Dungeons & Dragons as a tool of Satan. But we fight against evil in the game, she had explained to him. He replied You think so, but you are playing evil’s game. There is only one true Player’s Handbook and it is not the one with Moloch on the cover! When you play, you call attention to yourself. The Kings of Hell are paying attention.

Oh brother, a pastor I made up thinks this is a statue of Moloch.

(Moloch is in the Old Testament. He eats babies. That’s bad. So if you ever do see Moloch — definitely steal his eyes.)

When Steve Morris read this story, he said, “You should include an allusion to Mazes & Monsters.” Which you, my friend, probably already know: It’s the first movie to star Tom Hanks — and was inspired by the 1979 case of a college student who became deranged after playing too much D&D and ran amok in a labyrinth of underground steam tunnels. Well, that was the case as presented in the news media. In reality, the kid was tragically at risk of suicide, and was staying quietly at a friend’s house. The 1982 movie is famously cheesy, and the “case” that inspired it famously became part of early ‘80s Satanic Panic — and suddenly I realized I’d never actually seen Mazes & Monsters. What a gap. So I located it (on Tubi, if you’d like) and remedied the situation. I made sure to finish writing my story first — I didn’t want to be influenced. But I’m glad I watched it.

Tom Hanks’ comic genius is somehow underutilized here.

The movie was not what I expected. Not a big cartoon at all. It’s actually too serious — that’s what makes it cheesy — treating mental illness as a real problem to be concerned about, rather than as a launching pad for movie mayhem. I wish the news reports of the original case had gotten that right, and the movie had been the venue to go full mayhem — but instead we got the reverse. We get the reverse a lot. Which is scary. But if you read today’s Cannibal Cyclops story, you’ll probably notice it is much less serious than the sad reality. Like most horror. Its raison d’être is to remind you to enjoy life.

Oh, and — Steve and I hope you are enjoying Cannibal Cyclops. Hard to believe this month we celebrate its one-year anniversary. Launched five weeks into plague lockdown, it has given both of us something to dedicate ourselves to during long weeks of not leaving our respective homes. With any luck it has provided joy for you as well.