Labyrinth

Labyrinth

11/01/26

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Forty? Can it really be forty years since I went into a cinema to watch Jim Henson’s Labyrinth for the first time? Well, this being the 40th Anniversary re-release in a brand new 4K restoration, I guess it must be so. Back in 1986, I was certainly a David Bowie fan and The Muppet Show was a regular treat every Sunday, so naturally I was first in the queue to see it, though the mists of time have managed to erase which particular cinema the event took place in.

I can only recall that I enjoyed the experience, even if the particulars of the film itself remain hazy. So here’s my chance to clarify matters. Glancing around the busy auditorium, it’s clear I’m not the only one revisiting the past.

Sixteen-year-old Sarah Williams (Jennifer Connelly) is running late for the task of babysitting her infant half-brother, Toby. When she arrives, rushed and apologetic, her step-mother, Irene (Shelley Thompson), is angry and unforgiving. When Sarah discovers that Irene has given Sarah’s beloved teddy bear, Lancelot, to her brother, it’s the last straw. She impulsively wishes aloud that Toby could be abducted – by goblins from the titular book she’s just been reading.

Whereupon the Goblin King, Jareth (David Bowie), grants Sarah’s wish and tells her that, in exchange for Toby, he will give her her deepest desires. When she decides she’s acted too rashly, Jareth sets her a challenge: she has just thirteen hours in which to rescue the child. If she fails Toby will belong to Jareth forever. So Sarah has little option but to set off into the labyrinth which lies between her and Jareth’s castle. On the way, she enlists help from some of the strange creatures she encounters.

Henson’s film divided the critics on its release. It had poor box office in America but was a palpable hit in the UK, where audiences had more of a taste for the weird. And make no mistake, Labyrinth is weird in the truest sense of the word. Scripted by Monty Python-stalwart Terry Jones, it’s heavily influenced by Maurice Sendak’s Outside Over There (which also features a child kidnapped by goblins). And isn’t there a bit of The Wizard of Oz about it? A teenage girl accompanied by three fantastical companions, each of whom will learn something on the journey? Hmm.

The film’s look is largely due to the influence of illustrator Brian Froud – every frame look like one of his gorgeous picture books. Lest we forget, there was no CGI in those pre-Jurassic Park days, so Henson is called upon to push the practical puppetry to its very limits, his team dreaming up incredible creations and building them from whatever they could lay their hands on.

Bowie fits effortlessly into this world, sporting an outlandish fright-wig, some very tight trousers and a bizarre accent, which sounds like somebody mangling RP to within an inch of its life. Whatever it is, it works. He also sings a few self-composed songs along the way, none of which is particularly memorable, but are perfectly suitable for the capering, twitching creatures that back him up.

A sequence towards the end of the film in which Sarah pursues Toby up, down and under a series of MC Escher-style staircases provides a suitably mind-blowing finale. Forty years may have passed since its creation, but Labyrinth has aged well and it serves to provide a fitting tribute to the late Jim Henson, a man who devoted his life to creating magic.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

Nosferatu

02/01/25

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Most cinema fans have a blind spot: a director who has plenty of ardent fans, but who they just don’t get. Mine is the American director, Robert Eggers. Since his debut in 2015 with The Witch, each successive film has been received rapturously by a devoted following, while I remain underwhelmed. I quite enjoyed his fourth effort, The Northman, but was was left cold by its predecessor, The Lighthouse, and sadly I’m in (if you’ll forgive the pun) the same boat with Nosferatu, which has achieved Eggers’ biggest ever opening weekend. An extended director’s cut is already being seriously talked about. I view the film at my earliest opportunity, really wanting to enjoy it, ready to be pleasantly surprised, but sadly, once again, my hopes are confounded.

Nosferatu began life as a silent movie way back in 1922. Directed by FW Murnau, it was an unauthorised adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (or to put it in modern parlance, a rip-off). It was, understandably, the subject of a court order from Stoker’s heirs, who demanded that all copies of the film should be destroyed. But, against all the odds, a few prints survived the cull and Murnau’s plagiarised brainchild went on to become a much-lauded classic.

High time for a reboot then? Well okay, provided you discount Werner Herzog’s 1979 adaptation, Nosferatu the Vampyre, which cast Klaus Kinski in the role of the evil Count Orlok, and which I thought made a pretty decent job of it.

But since childhood, apparently, Eggers has wanted to film his version, so here it is, weighing in at a ponderous two hours and twelve minutes. It feels pointless to relate the plot, since in all but a few details, it’s Dracula with the names and locations changed. Bill Skarsgård takes the thankless role of the supernatural Count, compelled to lurk in the shadows, sporting an extravagant moustache and croaking risible lines in a subsonic rumble. It sounds like he’s gargling with porridge. Lily-Rose Depp plays Ellen, the unfortunate subject of the Count’s lust, while Nicolas Hoult is her husband, estate agent Thomas Hutter. He has been charged with the task of heading out into the middle of the Carpathians to sort out Count Orlok’s plans to up-sticks and move to Thomas’s home town of Wisborg, Germany. Of course, there must also be a Van Helsing figure in the mix and that role falls to Eggers’ regular muse Willem Dafoe as Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz.

To give the film its due, it looks pretty impressive in 35 mm, with many of Murnau’s original scenes recreated in meticulous detail. The costumes and makeup are handsomely done and Depp, Hoult and Dafoe all submit peerless performances, backed up by a cast of dependable actors. But the glacial pace of the proceedings makes me much too aware of how long the film is and, judging by the general restlessness of the audience at tonight’s screening, I’m not the only one suffering. There’s an endless trooping back and forth to the toilets.

What’s more, if the idea of an adaptation is to take the opportunity to offer a fresh perspective, why stick so slavishly to what has gone before? Why retain the misogynistic storyline where a woman, as punishment for her youthful sexual desires, now has to submit to a predatory man’s advances in order to save the husband she really loves? Sure, the story is set in the 1800s but we’re in the 2020s and it’s not some precious relic that can’t be tweaked.

What I mostly can’t forgive is the fact that this is supposed to be a horror film and yet nothing here is in the least bit scary, just occasionally bloody and unpleasant. Those with an aversion to rats might want to give this a swerve as there are moments where the creatures run riot across the streets of the city and, in some scenes, scamper gleefully across the bodies of the actors. I stick it out to the end but frankly, I’m glad when it’s over.

There will no doubt be plenty of devotees queuing up to tell me I’ve got it wrong, but I can do nothing more about it. I’m just not a fan of the Robert Eggers’ style. The news that his next planned film is a reboot of Jim Henson’s muppet/David Bowie crossover, Labyrinth (I promise I’m not making this up), fills me with more terror than Nosferatu ever could.

2.8 stars

Philip Caveney