In this post, I’m taking a look at the 1950s monster movie The Maze (1953) to talk about the world of “inheritance horror” and how a big house full of secrets can serve as a metaphor for our deepest genetic medical anxieties.

This episode is a completely audio-only essay, designed like a casual phone call from your neighborhood cinephile friend. You can hit play on the video below to listen along, but if you’re someone who prefers to skip the audio and just read, I’ve got you covered! You can scroll past the video player to find the full, cleaned-up transcript of the discussion down below.

There’s a few things that I’m looking for when I watch a 50s monster movie, and The Maze has all of them. There’s enough buildup that’s vague that lets my mind start making up scenarios that are worse than the inevitably kind of goofy conclusion. But you have to admit that the monster at the end, as silly as it usually is, would be something that would terrify you in real life. And there’s also just got to be a completely BS explanation based on science, but no science that we’ve ever heard of and also very vague. And the maze has a little twist in that it’s not just a monster movie, it’s also inheritance horror. And inheritance horror gets into one of my favorite horror movie rules. But let me just explain a little bit about this movie.

Oh, and there has to be like a likable star. And so that’s Richard Carlson. And you will have seen him in a lot of these type of movies. He plays Gerald. Gerald is happy. He’s about to get married, vacationing in France with his fiance and her aunt as a celebratory trip. And he gets a telegram that he’s got to go to Scotland to an uncle he hardly knows who’s going to leave him a castle called Castle Craven. Now, the castle has a maze, which got my imagination going. And these are the clues we have.

Gerald dumps his fiance Kitty upon receiving this inheritance. He says that someone would have to die in order for them to get married. And then later we see a book about genetic diseases. So, my mind is working overtime. There’s a maze, so there’s got to be a minotaur. Gerald has dumped Kitty, so maybe he’s already married. Maybe Gerald’s inheritance curse is that he becomes a Minotaur. Or as my husband had to point out in the middle of all my you know stress and foreshadowing that maybe this guy is married to a minotaur but it’s none of that and the real explanation is so silly but on the other hand at the end of a monster movie you often feel sorry for the monster and this is the case here.

Now, the maze is put to good use in night scenes. Of course, let me back up. Kitty and her aunt Edith are not going to take no for an answer. They’re not going to let Gerald just ghost her. So, they leave France and show up in Scotland. And he keeps telling them to leave, to leave, to leave. And another thing with inheritance horror is that you often get servants with the mansion. So, they’re there and they’re very menacing and they’re locking these women in their rooms at night, but they forget that there’s a secret passage out of one of these conjoined rooms that they’ve put them in.

So, they sneak out into the maze. And the 50s black and white shadow play is done pretty well here as they’re going through the maze. You can forget that the maze is basically a model when seen above and a set when they’re in it. It’s very well done and this movie is well acted and there’s a lot of suspense. As I said, the ending is kind of silly, but that brings me to my first question for you. Do as a horror fan, you know, a diehard horror fan, you got to forgive some silly endings, right? Because they can’t all be a punch to the gut. Sometimes they’re a tickle to the ribs. So, does the ending of the movie ruin all the buildup you’ve done in your mind? Let me know in the comments.

Now, I was going to get back to Inheritance Horror. As an 80s kid, when I think of inheritance horror, I think of two things: Alison’s Birthday and The Beyond. And Alison’s Birthday, what’s being inherited is the youngest person’s body. As the oldest person in the family, their soul jumps into someone’s body who that’s their birthright at 18. And that’s one thing I was thinking that Gerald’s uncle was perhaps going to take over his body. And then the other thing is as in The Beyond someone’s down on their luck and suddenly they inherit a fortune that comes with a big house.

In this case, Richard wasn’t hurting for money. He was going to get the title of Baronet, and he always knew that, but was kind of vague about it. And that’s what sets this movie apart because you may say, “Erin, you’ve been listing monster movie cliches,” but there’s a twist. Gerald isn’t the protagonist of The Maze. It’s Kitty. So, everything is from her point of view.

And then another interesting angle is Aunt Edith shows up at the beginning of the movie as sort of a host and she’s alluding looking right at us breaking the fourth wall to that these events took place a year ago but doesn’t say and so we know that she’s lived through her trip to the castle. It’s called Craven Castle, but have Kitty and Gerald and the servants? And she keeps showing up throughout the film, sort of heightening the tension and making my imagination work more.

So, what does We know monster movies are kind of a reaction to things going on in the environment, but inheritance horror it’s it’s my horror movie rule that you know if you inherit a big house from somebody you hardly know, run because nothing good is going to come of it. But what is the fear that makes us keep coming back to this type of horror? And it’s it’s explicitly in this movie. Inheritance horror from family that you don’t know about is the horror of some sort of genetic abnormality. And that’s why the clue in this movie, The Maze, is that they find a book on strange diseases, strange abnormalities in birth in that run in families.

So, that’s how I explain that. And it took seeing The Maze to put that together that that’s what inheritance horror really is, is a fear of what you don’t know about your family. What could come at you that you’re not expecting out of your own body.

So, let me know in the comments if you have a favorite goofy monster movie. And if you have a favorite inheritance horror and if you have any sort of unusual horror movie rules that you like to go by, I like to lose myself in this type of movie. I like to imagine that it is the ’50s and I’m at the drive-in and I’m seeing this with open eyes and an open heart and eating some popcorn. So, you can find this. I wouldn’t say it’s a lost classic, but you can find The Maze in its entirety on YouTube. I’d take a look.

And especially I would like to highlight the very beginning of the movie after the prologue. When they’re in France, there’s a very acrobatic dance scene in a club, which I enjoyed, which doesn’t go with the tone of the rest of the movie, but which seemed to show up in a lot of 50s movies. There would be a song and dance section and that’s kind of lost from us now. So, favorite monster movies, favorite B monster movies, favorite Richard Carlson movies, talk to me. And I’m going to be coming at you at the beginning of next week with a double feature review of a couple of J-horror movies. And I’m going to have a special guest. So until then, keep your popcorn popped and keep your windows locked and don’t go in any mazes. See you soon.