"Your illness can be helped, I'm sure of it!""I'm not ill, Kitty. I only wish it were something that simple."Edith Murray (Katherine Emery) and her niece Kitty (Veronica Hurst) are vacationing with Kitty's fiancée Gerald MacTeam (Richard Carlson) when Gerald receives word his uncle has died and he has inherited his title and castle in Scotland. When Gerald breaks up the engagement weeks later in a mysterious letter, Edith and Kitty travel to his remote castle to confront him ...The Maze is a gothic horror film directed by William Cameron Menzies.While it was filmed as a 3D movie during the 1950s 3D craze, this is luckily not very obvious when watching it in 2D and doesn't take away from it.Menzies' movie looks great, with excellent black and white cinematography, employing light and shadows skillfully, resulting in a very atmospheric, eerie movie. The production values are excellent, with very good-looking sets, and the cast is great as well, especially Hurst and Carlson.The Maze creates an intriguing mystery, which is quite captivating, and tension is skillfully built throughout until the film's big revelation - and that's when it gets weaker.The solution turns out rather silly, and there's some clumsy exposition in the film, especially at the very end when everything which happened has to be explained and wrapped up for the confused audience.While it could've been more elegantly executed, The Maze is nonetheless an intriguing, very well filmed, atmospheric and good-looking horror movie, brought down by a clumsy ending.
Would you believe me if I told you that this immediately became one of my all-time favorite 3D Blu-rays? Yeah, I'm that weirdo who just won't give up when it comes to 3D. I still own a couple 3D TVs and a decent collection of 3D Blus. And I'm still seriously bummed that all that shit died off. You see, it actually goes way back. I've been a stereoscopy enthusiast since I was a wee lad, when someone first shoved a View-Master into my hands. There's a certain aesthetic with stereoscopic photography. A vibe that I'm all about. The rest of the world may have moved on, but I'm still over here craving new 3D Blus to watch. Well, once again, 3D Film Archive has come to the rescue. After having my mind blown by their restoration of Chang Mei-chun's Dynasty, I thought I'd seen the pinnacle. But I couldn't have been more wrong. Along comes this obscure slice of b&w gothic horror in eye-popping 3D that just splattered my poor brains all over my living-room wall. A creepy old castle, fog, cobwebs, hidden passages, rubber bats, etc. In friggin' 3D!!! The story was great too, right up until a rather silly reveal. So yeah, five fuckin' stars, for the visuals alone. I'll be popping this in again, soon. I'd like to thank Jozlyn for bringing this up with her, along with some other restorations from 3D Film Archive.
Back when the SyFy Channel was called the Sci-Fi Channel (the 90s), they used to have big film marathons where they would show dozens of forgotten movies from the 1950s. Though I am well-acquainted with fantastic cinema from that decade, I had never heard much about The Maze but thanks to Sci-Fi Marathons, I discovered this off-beat little confection that is part-Gothic, part Lovecraft and quite atypical for its time.Set primarily in an old Scottish Castle, this mystery involves a nice, well-adjusted American named Gerald MacTeam who unexpectedly inherits the ancestral castle.....and some deeply undesirable responsibilities. He disappears from his past life and his lovely fiance, Kitty. Being a "keeper", Kitty goes to find out why MacTeam has begun radio silence and disappeared into the moldy old castle. Suffice to say, the viewer will NEVER deduce what's going on at benighted Craven Castle if they haven't read previous spoilers. However, it does involve a monster....and Darwin....with a sprinkling of Lovecraft. I can totally visualize Roger Corman remaking this, in lurid color, with Vincent Price, in the 1960s. That would have been a hoot.Directed by celebrated art director William Cameron Menzies, this low-budget film still exhibits stylish flourishes and perspectives, thanks to Menzies, who also directed the OG Invaders from Mars this same year. And, yes, as the poster screams, it was part of the short-lived 3-D craze that Hollywood deployed (unsuccessfully) to dethrone television and put fannies back in theater seats. There are some awkwardly framed scenes that were made to satisfy that technique but it doesn't really detract.We also get to see iconic scientist-hero Richard Carlson play a role that is quite different from his other science fiction forays. I give The Maze credit for trying something different, in general, and though it has been forgotten compared to many of its peers, I still enjoy it for what it is.
