Dark Dungeons is the famous (or should I say infamous?) adapation of the (definitely) infamous Chick Tract of the same name. What's a "Chick Tract?" Jack Chick is a religious fanatic who used to write and mass-produce these little cartoon booklets and hand them out *everywhere*. I remember getting mine at the local library where I'd go to play--you guessed it--the "evil, Satanic, addictive" RPG Dungeons & Dragons.
This movie follows the source material (about 8 pages of cartoons) fairly faithfully. It is very obviously an extreme outsider's take on D&D viewed through an extreme religious lens. As in, "How about I make a tract/movie about the unquestionable spiritual evils of gaming without ever witnessing a gaming session or even talking to a gamer?" First of all, we're supposed to believe that the gamer geeks--excuse me, "RPGers"--are too popular to kick out of school. Let's get this out of the way right now: There is no universe in which the gamers are the cool kids, ever. Then, the movie's depiction of a gaming session starts with a wild rave party with professional DJs, drinks, and awesome light displays and in which there's a nearly equal mix of males and females. Yeah, never happened. Anywhere. Then the whole party starts chanting "RPG! RPG! RPG!" in a frenzy, culminating in the players and DM sitting around an elaborate table with candles and expensive gaming aids, surrounded by stadium seating filled with rapt groupies. Uh-huh. And those players who "can't take it" (character dies?) are forced to leave the table. As if rolling up a new character is a concept as foreign to them as deodorant is to most of their real-life counterparts.
Has anyone ever experienced a gaming (nobody calls it "RPG-ing") session like that? I know I haven't in my decades of playing. The typical session takes place around a rickety card table in someone's Mom's mildewy basement and consists of a frustrated GM trying to keep the attention of five or six (all male) neckbeard munchkins and/or stoners long enough for them to ruin a carefully-crafted plotline while scarfing down mountains of pizza rolls and guzzling gallons of Mountain Dew. But I digress.
In the Dark Dungeons universe, the DM is a gorgeous brunette who is an actual witch with real magic powers. She is seeking to unleash Cthulhu--yes, the real, honest-to-Lovecraft Cthulhu--into the world by enticing and corrupting youthful souls into demon-worship through Are Pee Gee! The sad part is that the least believable aspect of all this is a hot chick being the DM.
Our two devout and pious female protagonists are seen being drawn slowly into the world of (Gasp! No!) Dungeons & Dragons, gradually becoming addicted to the point they ignore their grades. One of them, Debbie, is approached by the DM ("Mistress Frost") and granted actual, real-life spellcasting powers through the auspices of live-action roleplay, or as they (and they alone in the universe) invariably call it: "ELL AYY ARE PEE!" Meanwhile the other girl, Marcie, goofs up and gets her character killed. This drives her to suicide (see aforementioned comment on "not knowing what rolling up a new character is"), much to the delight of Frost and the horror of Debbie. Eventually, Debbie realizes that D&D is Evil, turns back to Jesus, and with a heartfelt prayer (and a little book-burning), destroys the entire evil organization's headquarters, computers and all, in a massive explosion of some kind of divine fire. Somehow.
Hail RPG!
"WHAT?!"
L. Gabriel Gonda
Alyssa Kay
Jonathan Crimeni
