Labyrinth

In today’s climate of kids’ films being focus tested to make sure there is nothing remotely scary, confusing or likely to give someone nightmares, I am not even sure Labyrinth would get made.

This film has monsters, creepy faces, bizarre songs and David Bowie playing a villain so ridiculously charismatic that you occasionally forget he has literally kidnapped a baby.

Jennifer Connelly probably had the harder job here. Sarah starts the film as an irritating teenager who makes a terrible decision, and the film somehow has to make us stick with her long enough to care what happens next. I would not say I completely warmed to her, but I liked that you actually see her grow throughout the film without her suddenly stopping everything to deliver some massive speech about becoming a better person.

Then there is David Bowie.

He plays Jareth like someone told him subtlety was banned from the set. Every entrance is dramatic, every outfit is ridiculous and every look feels like he is about to either cast a spell or start performing to a stadium full of people.

And somehow it works perfectly.

The songs could easily have brought the whole film to a stop, but Labyrinth is already so strange and theatrical that they just become another part of the world. Bowie completely commits to it, and the film is much better for it.

The creature work is probably the thing I love most though.

Jim Henson’s creations range from funny and charming to genuinely unsettling. Some of them look like things you would happily buy a cuddly toy of. Others look like something you would see standing at the bottom of your bed at three in the morning.

Not everything works.

The Fireys sequence in particular feels like someone accidentally wandered onto the wrong soundstage, filmed an entire musical number and nobody had the heart to tell them it belonged in another movie. It is weird even by Labyrinth standards.

But honestly, I would rather have a fantasy film that occasionally gets too weird than one that is completely forgettable.

The practical sets, puppets and effects give Labyrinth a texture that a lot of modern digital fantasy films just do not have. The walls feel solid. The creatures actually occupy the same space as the actors. Everything feels dirty, strange and slightly uncomfortable in exactly the right way.

Labyrinth is not perfect.

But perfection would probably make it worse.

The reason people still talk about this film is because it is strange, messy, imaginative and completely confident in being its own thing.

And I will take that over another safe, generic fantasy film every single time.