“You think that mosquitos, monkeys, and lions are bad? That is just the beginning. I’ve seen things you’ve only seen in your nightmares. Things you can’t even imagine. Things you can’t even see. There are things that hunt you in the night. Then something screams. Then you hear them eating, and you hope to God that you’re not dessert. Afraid? You don’t even know what afraid is. You would not last five minutes without me.”
This is a quote from the character of Alan Parrish as delivered by the late, legendary Robin Williams in the 1995 hit Jumanji. It goes pretty hard, doesn’t it?
It’s intense. It’s foreboding, and it’s played straight. That is the key to the gateway horror aspect of the film – the danger is always played straight.
Bloody Disgusting loves giving props to gateway horror – those films and shows that embrace the macabre and are also safe for the younger set, often responsible for acting as pivotal stepping stones for a lifelong love of the genre.
Jumanji, despite surviving the test of time as a beloved 90s staple, seems to be skipped over when discussing gateway horror.
Directed by Joe Johnston, Jumanji isn’t pure horror, of course. It’s a rather confident mix of adventure, comedy, and action. Yet in that cocktail horror is always around the corner.
The very concept itself, that of a mysterious board game that can suck you into its world or spew its world into ours, is the perfect premise for all kinds of freaky shenanigans.
The surprise acclaim the recent Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves has received got me thinking about the relationship a group of players has with tabletop games. D&D is of course known for its role playing and world-building elements. While traditional board games lack this degree of interaction, what if one had a mind of its own? What if you couldn’t just rage quit when things don’t go your way? What if the innocent act of playing meant agreeing to a battle of life and death?
Jumanji taps into one of horror’s most fertile tropes: the mundane as something terrifying. It’s just a board game, but the object itself is foreboding and ominous, seemingly emanating with a pulsing drum beat all of its own, hinting that the game is self-aware in some capacity.
Jumanji is clever in that it never calls attention to the meta of its narrative with winks and nods. It’s simply baked into the story.
We’ve just about all had that experience of a Monopoly game dragging on for eternity and someone (maybe you) losing their cool and storming off…possibly after flipping the board over in impotent rage. Agreeing to hunker down for a board game session is a commitment. Depending on how seriously you and those in your party take it, a session can result in aggravation, flared tempers, and game pieces whizzing past your head at treacherous speeds.
Imagine being stuck in a game of Monopoly. You NEED to finish it or else you and those you’re playing with could die. Or worse…get stuck in the game itself. It’s a darkly funny concept, and Jumanji’s innate understanding of the culture of board games lends the fantasy all of the verisimilitude in the world.
The first bit of potential nightmare fuel in the film is when young Alan, after just having a falling out with his father (Jonathan Hyde), plays the game with his crush and neighbor Sarah. It doesn’t take long for Alan to roll a bad hand, getting sucked into the center of the board while Sarah looks on in terror – right before a cauldron of bats erupts from the fireplace, chasing her out of the house. Alan is slowly warped and stretched as the rules of our world no longer apply. Jumanji has him now. His screams fade, and then he’s gone.
Having not seen this movie for quite some time, I was surprised at the level of care Johnston took in crafting tension during most of the set pieces. A sort of localized, quasi-apocalyptic flavor circles the fringes of the narrative, as the town the film takes place in is also affected by the game leaking into our world. This raises the stakes of the movie significantly, as it could have been an easy oversight in the script to only have the danger target and affect the main characters.
Giant mosquitos attack people, sending them into shock all across town.
A gang of Gremlins-esque monkeys wreak havoc all over: stealing, hijacking vehicles, and causing complete and utter chaos.
A hungry lion stalks its prey from the shadows.
A stampede of jungle animals acts as a living freight train of destruction.
We have a psychotic hunter (also played by Hyde) by the name of Van Pelte hellbent on The Most Dangerous Gaming Alan.
There is even mild body horror at play as the young Peter (Bradley Pierce) begins to turn into a monkey for trying to cheat the game.
This kind of story decision can play havoc on a kid’s fears. The fear of punishment, of doing wrong and being caught – having that shame visible for all to see with nothing you can do to hide it – it’s pretty damned heavy stuff for a mostly light-hearted adventure film.
Robin Williams plays it in a mostly understated way. He doesn’t mug or go off on any of trademark ad-libbing tangents. He commits to selling Alan as a guy who has miraculously lived through some insane shit. Of course, the film doesn’t make him unfunny, but most of the humor comes from the clever reverse of the fish-out-of-water trope the character occupies instead of Williams affecting over-the-top voices or mannerisms.
Williams was very good at playing the action hero in family fare, with this role making a nice pairing with his beloved turn as grown up Peter Pan in Spielberg’s Hook. The rest of the cast is admirable as well, with a young Kirsten Dunst, the always underappreciated David Alan Grier, and Bonnie Hunt rounding out the characters.
I won’t lie. I just wanted an excuse to write about a film I liked as a kid that I was shocked to find holds up well almost 30 years later. Jumanji arrived right smack in the middle of the 90s, two years after Jurassic Park changed the game. Jurassic Park was the crowning jewel of gateway horror cinema in the 90s. Jumanji is from a time when family films weren’t just mostly animated features (no shade on animation, but the live action family film is all but extinct in theaters today). It’s also a reminder when family films weren’t afraid to treat the younger audience with respect, deal in heavier themes, and scare them good and proper.
Sometimes childhood staples lose their amber hue. Jumanji has enough craft and heart to remain a great watch today.
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