Dark Dungeons: The Movie

Had movie night last night and watched the D&D-is-Satanic 1980's-Parody movie "Dark Dungeons" with a couple of buds. Its a brought-to-life adaptation of the old Jack Chick anti-RPG pamphlets handed out by concerned Churchgoers back in the 1980s. You know, the ones that promised you eternal damnation in hell if you dared to roll up an elven cleric under the watchful gaze of Jesus (who evidently hates Gamers, but loves Jocks). It was made by the crew who made "The Gamers: Dorkness Rising" via Kickstarter, so you know they take a firmly tongue-in-cheek approach to it.

 

The story revolves around Debbie and Marcie, a couple of girls who are best friends (with a blatant 'maybe-want-to-be-more-than-friends' vibe from Marcie) and going to college for their freshman year. They're warned by the good Christian football player to watch out for the evil D&D players, and the good Christians have tried but can't get them thrown off campus because, and I quote: "Those RPGers are too darn popular!" Of course the girls go to a party where all the cool kids are playing D&D, and get sucked in. Debbie learns spells, monsters are unleashed in the Steam Tunnels, and the entire world is put at risk simply because Marcie is: "...willing to do anything to get to level 8!"

Tom's betrayal took years to get over. Well, until Big came out. That movie was great.

 Funny thing is, while the acting is purposefully wooden (I hope?) and the references left ridiculous on their face in this day and age, they keep to the comic storyline and don't break theme very much at all. Its still cheesy as heck, and Jesus is definitively the Answer in this movie, with no ifs, ands, or buts about it. They let the ridiculousness of the situation stand as is, and even end with the all-important J.R.R. Tolkien book burning to banish the devil from Debbie's soul. They keep it so straight that one could believe that the more simple-minded Kirk Cameron fans would be convinced that this movie is a serious warning about playing Dungeons and Dragons, its so similar to the Left Behind acting vibe. Or that one Internet-porn-addiction/married-fireman movie he made. The one where he smashes his 1993 Pentium II computer with a bat to rid it of the porn demons. Was it Fireproof? I think it was something like that. *Googles* Yup. Fireproof.

Because I totally believe you're surfing Brazzers via Netscape in 2008, Kirk.

My only complaint with Dark Dungeons is that they decided to change it to Cthulhu being the all-powerful D&D-manipulating evil entity, and didn't actually stick with Satan. I felt like that was a little heavy-handed of a fan-service to throw CGI images of him in there, just because they know that their audience are a bunch of Deep One worshipers. I would've preferred they just kept it to good ol' Satan, and maybe go with a Tim Curry in his Legend makeup, rather than try to tie it into the overused Cthulhu Mythos. Nevertheless, it was still fairly entertaining. And at only 45 minutes long it ended before it could become stale.

I give it Three book burnings out of Five.