Frequently I thank the sweet baby Jesus that I was not raised Catholic. Aside from the fact that I never had to devote brain space to dusty Latin phrases or a list of saints, I grew up without that pervasive sense of guilt that seems to haunt many religious folks when it comes to feelin' groovy. And while I'm no hedonist, I certainly have my own bouquet of pleasures, ranging from the moderate to the illegal, none of which I feel one iota of guilt about. Of course, there's an exception: my seemingly insatiable appetite for fantasy movies. Procrastination becomes inevitable. Deadlines become malleable. And my long-suffering wife goes to bed cold and alone while I sit like a zombie, lit by a flickering screen. Mea culpa.
I would not consider myself to be an expert in the genre. In fact, labelling my film fetish with the term "fantasy" might be painting it with too broad a brush. Let's just say that if dragons, ghosts, carnivorous worms, swords of power, magic rings, time travel or Warwick Davis are involved, I'll bite.
I have a particular soft spot for fantasy movies from what is, in retrospect, probably the least magical decade of the 20th century: the 1980s. It was during this period (and my teenage years, oddly enough) that I discovered treasures such as E.T., Gremlins, Legend, Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal. I recall seeing that last film in the theatre with my mom who pronounced that despite the fact that the wise Ur-ru mystics and evil Skeksis were actually two halves of a single mystical creature called the UrSkek, good and evil were definitely NOT the same thing. Labyrinth, while visually incredible, presented truths of an even more disturbing nature, showcasing David Bowie (done up as a New Wave goblin king) in snug grey tights that left absolutely nothing to the imagination.
Of course, there were a host of stinkers too. Willow, which I recall loving as a small-town teen, seems pretty craptacular by today's standards. The Neverending Story? Goofy. And while the steroid-laden Conan series had its moments (such as James Earl Jones turning into a python), the knock-offs, including the homoerotic romp known as Beast Master, were terrible. Masters of the Universe, on the other hand, was even worse than terrible, which shouldn't come as a shock considering it was based on a cartoon based in turn on a series of toys. And the hideously bad Troll 2, which features a bevy of little people decked out in latex and snacking on a blow-dried 80s family, is apparently in the running for the "best worst movie of all time." For some mysterious reason, however, I almost like the awful movies better. Is it the camp factor? The cringingly painful dialogue? The inevitably generous assets of the heroine? It's an enigma worthy of Gandalf himself.
