The Maze

What can you say about a plot that, after first resolutely following the path of a Gothic-style melodrama, suddenly veers off in the direction of Lovecraftian cosmic horror?

Certainly few viewers had the temerity to suspect that the unfortunate Gerald’s torments were caused by an ancient, frog-like great-great-great grandfather needing parental care (a sort of mega-frog not unlike the “Beelzebufo ampinga” from the late Cretaceous period).

More incredible still is the “denouement” that invokes Ernst H. Haeckel’s “Biogenetic Law” – a historical hypothesis that states that the development of an animal’s embryo, from fertilization to gestation or hatching (ontogeny), goes through stages that mirror successive adult stages in the evolution of the animal’s remote ancestors (phylogeny) – and ends up presenting the poor old frog-man less as a product of deformity caused by some sort of mutation and more as a consequence of a “hitch” in the process of biological recapitulation (“ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny”) that characterizes the physiobiological stages of development (“The human embryo goes through all the stages of evolution, from the invertebrate to the mammal. At one point, the embryo is an amphibian. Sir Roger never developed beyond that stage physically, but he continued to grow and develop mentally“).

Imbued with a somber climate of calamity, the film proceeds with an intentionally formal and measured pace, but it nevertheless manages to convey a decent level of tension. Unfortunately, the atmosphere quickly gets the better of a handful of characters whose lines exude an unpleasant vibe of sexism (they utter statements such as: “If you must have help, don’t engage any more women“, and, more generally, the fairer sex is depicted as so weak and impressionable that the protagonist is willing to break off his engagement just to spare his companion from having to see the monster).

Directing this oddity (in 3D) is the seasoned William Cameron Menzies in his third and final time up to bat in the fantasy realm. The movie was inspired by the 1945 novel of the same name by Swiss author Maurice-Yvers Sandoz.

Flawed, strange, undeniably original.