Column 80s Fantasy Film Club Labyrinth: Muppets, Bowie, and the Pain of Impending Adulthood Name a better musical fantasy movie about our fear of growing up. By Tyler Dean | Published on April 15, 2026 Credit: The Jim Henson Company Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: The Jim Henson Company In this column, we’re looking back at the 1980s as their own particular age of fantasy movies—a legacy that largely disappeared in the ’90s only to resurface in the 2000s, though in many ways, the fantasy films of the Eighties are far weirder and less polished than what we got in the aughts. In each of these articles, we’ll explore a canonical fantasy movie released between 1980 and 1989 and discuss whatever enduring legacy the film has maintained in the decades since. For a more in-depth introduction to this series of articles, you can find the first installment here, focusing on 1981’s Dragonslayer. Last time we looked at Rankin/Bass’ animated adaptation of Peter S. Beagle’s classic novel The Last Unicorn. This time we’re continuing the hit parade with an examination of the Jim Henson fairytale classic and showcase for David Bowie’s legendary bulge, Labyrinth. Labyrinth was one of my favorites growing up; I was too young to have caught its 1986 theatrical release, but I watched it on rented VHS repeatedly with my sister and stepsisters. Alongside Willow, it was a family favorite played on endless repeat.  Based on a screenplay by Monty Python alumnus Terry Jones (along with other uncredited writers, including Elaine May) and directed by Henson working in close collaboration with the legendary illustrator, Brian Froud, Labyrinth follows suburban teen Sarah (Jennifer Connelly), annoyed by her stepmother and stuck babysitting her half-brother, Toby (Toby Froud, Brian’s son). In a moment of pique, she idly wishes that the Goblin King would take the crying baby away and leave her in peace. When the Goblin King turns out to be real—his name is Jareth, and he’s played, of course, by David Bowie—and his muppet-y minions fulfill her wish, Sarah must journey to the heart of Jareth’s realm before thirteen hours elapse or risk losing her brother forever. Alongside Hoggle, a curmudgeonly dwarf, Ludo, a fearsome-looking but harmless beast, and Sir Didymus, a chivalrous, dog-riding fox, Sarah navigates the titular labyrinth’s lateral thinking puzzles and cruel tricks, all while negotiating her growing fascination with and attraction to Jareth. She finally confronts the Goblin King in an MC Escher-inspired liminal space, recites the incantation she was practicing at the beginning of the film, reclaiming her brother and returning to the real world. In a final moment, many of the characters and creatures she encountered appear in her room, telling her that they’ll always be there if she needs them. Labyrinth, like many of the films reviewed in this column, was a modest box office success that became a runaway hit on home video and through overseas theatrical releases. It received some stunningly bad reviews at the time—another nail in the coffin of Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert’s good taste, in my opinion—but is generally beloved today. It’s widely considered one of Henson’s best films (certainly his best that doesn’t feature the Muppets) and helped to further bolster the reputation of executive producer George Lucas and Lucasfilm as forces to be reckoned with in speculative fiction films. But…is it any good? Does it hold up forty years later? You better believe it does! Froud’s design, Henson’s practical effect magic, Jones’ comic sensibilities, and Bowie’s overwhelming charisma make this one a winner on almost every level. I’ve revisited Labyrinth many times over the years but there are always new details to find. With the advent of subtitles this time around, I discovered that one of the tiny goblins that rearranges Sarah’s lipstick-drawn arrows shouts some version of “your mother is a fragging aardvark!” which is just one of dozens of laugh lines delivered by a cavalcade of appealing Froud-y puppets with the voices of veteran Muppet actors like Steve Whitmire, Brian Henson, and Frank Oz.  It’s a gorgeous film and while it might lack some of the pure nightmare fuel of Henson and Froud’s other collaboration—1982’s The Dark Crystal—it more than makes up for it with whimsy, charm, and a color palette of lush greens and deep ochres. Its goblin characters are grotesque without ever being unappealing; Hoggle, for example, is an ugly little troll who somehow still has all the rugged swagger and cantankerous personality of a late-in-life Harrison Ford. Ludo is a delightful mixture of orangutan and giant ground sloth who looks like a distant cousin of a Balrog run through a kawaii Snapchat filter. Every single goblin, worm, and talking rock lands right at the nexus of hideous and incredibly cute.  There are a couple of sour notes. There are some weird racial stereotypes in the form of armored goblins with stereotypical East Asian accents performed by white voice actors. It begins to drag a little bit in its second half. And, while I can appreciate the body horror of the scene, nothing will ever make me like the head-juggling, limb-swapping Fireys that show up to sing Labyrinth’s worst song, the reggae-inspired “Chilly Down” (also, notably, the only song that Bowie doesn’t sing in the final version). It’s also undeniable that David Bowie makes the film work. Sting, Mick Jagger, Prince, Michael Jackson, and Kevin Kline were all apparently considered for the part of the Goblin King and with the possible exception of Kline, it would be hard to overstate how much the others would not have worked in the role. Bowie is weird without being off-putting, ominous but never overtly threatening, queer without falling into the tropes of queer-coded Disney villains while his status as a bi icon ensures his chemistry with Connelly feel believable, and he perfectly masks his desperate attentions under an exaggerated veil of disinterest. All of that without mentioning how much screen time his far-too-revealing tights get. Bowie’s bulge has been the subject of much discussion over the years and, no doubt, fuel for many an AO3 yarn, but it feels weirdly in line with the rest of his character—an obvious bit of seductive tantalization hidden just enough to not feel obscene in a children’s film. But one of the best things in Labyrinth is how seriously it takes Sarah. She’s profoundly relatable but largely unlikable. She’s rude to her stepmother, overreacts dramatically when her father tries to talk to her, and is pretty whiny about her situation in the labyrinth for the first half of the film. None of that is a mark against the film or Connelly’s performance. Sarah feels more like a real teenager than most on-screen representations, and the film never makes light of her feelings, even as it makes her entitlement and bad behavior pretty clear. And where her arc might have revolved around her needing to grow up in a less skillful script, here the ultimate lesson is that she’s allowed to hold on to childish things and the world of her imagination even as life forces her to grow up and take on greater responsibility. And that brings us, of course, to what is probably the film’s most powerful scene: Jareth’s masquerade, in which Sarah finds herself transported into a decadent fantasy, dressed up in a gorgeous ballgown while glamorous, sinister couples swirl around her. Unsure of herself, Sarah mopes around the edges of the ball, looking for Jareth and silently emoting both desire and trepidation. When she finally dances with Jareth, the film manages to project a distinct sense of unease on Sarah’s part. Jareth is never explicitly portrayed as predatory; one gets the sense that he is less of an adult preying on Sara so much as a projection of her own complicated desire (it’s important to remember that the film opens with her stepmother insinuating that she’s a late bloomer when it comes to dating). But it also gets at the feeling of being barred from something one desperately wants to be a part of: Peter Pan at the Darlings’ window. I mentioned this in my review of Legend—another film with a lot to say about the line between childhood and adulthood—but the masquerade ball perfectly encapsulates the desire to be an adult while being unprepared for the complicated feelings and rituals of the adult world. Whereas Legend says of its teenaged, female protagonist that the adult world will not allow her to remain a child, Labyrinth, ever centering children, allows that the adult world of sexual desire can be a scary place while also making sure that it’s Sara’s feelings, not her actual well-being, that is at stake. It’s a bit ironic that one of Labyrinth’s enduring legacies is the “Labyrinth of Jareth Masquerade Ball” a costumed, bacchanalian two-day event that has been taking place in Los Angeles and San Diego for the last thirty years and leans hard into the sexual awakening/forbidden desires angle of the scene. It’s a lot of fun and definitely a highlight of the cosplay/con circuit, but it does sort of miss the point of the scene entirely.  The film, as the rare cult classic that has all but conquered the mainstream’s imagination in the forty years since its release, has had a long and prosperous afterlife, influencing cinema and pop culture in all sorts of ways. There are numerous artbooks published over the last four decades as well as a videogame released for the Commodore 64 and Apple II in 1986. There were also pinball games, comic books, short stories, and a planned graphic novel prequel that never actually saw the light of day. And there are also rumors of a sequel or remake that stretch back to 2016. While nothing has been set, horror auteur Robert Eggers, who directed The VVitch (2015), and Nosferatu (2024) is currently attached. But beyond direct media adaptations, the film’s legacy endures in a variety of ways. It has kept the late glam-rock icon David Bowie relevant to later generations that might never have otherwise connected with his music career in the ’70s and ’80s. His look in Labyrinth—Tina Turner wig, puffy shirt, black leather vest, and uncomfortably revealing silver tights—is as iconic as any the Thin White Duke ever sported. For folks under 50, he’s probably more recognizable as Jareth than he is as Ziggy Stardust. Certainly, Labyrinth is the crown of Bowie’s film career. As much as I love The Last Temptation of Christ, The Hunger, and The Prestige, his roles in those films just can’t compete with the Goblin King. Much like its fellow faerie-centric film, 1985’s Legend, Labyrinth’s visual style has seeped into the DNA of modern filmmakers. Guillermo del Toro’s films have been on the shortlist for production design, costuming, and makeup awards for the last twenty-five years and there is no question that Labyrinth’s look (and Brian Froud’s work in general) have been a gigantic influence. His most faerie-tale inspired film, 2006’s Pan’s Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno) even invokes the image of a labyrinth both in plot and title. And all of this is without considering the fan response. One is hard pressed to attend a con or a Renaissance Faire without spotting at least one Labyrinth-inspired costume.  It’s also worth noting that Labyrinth, which is a standout in a long line of stories about girls from the real world confronting fantastical beings or transported into fantasy lands (Rossetti’s “Goblin Market,” Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and the Wizard of Oz to name just a few), helped a new wave of fantasy authors to revive and revitalize that trope. Authors like Terri Windling, Pamela Dean, Charles de Lint, and Seanan McGuire have used this trope to build out whole genres of fantasy literature and, while Labyrinth is far from the first example, it’s an important cultural touchpoint along the way.  But what do you think? Is Labyrinth as central to your personality as it is to mine? Are you a Bowie fan because of this film? Are you excited for or trepidatious about the rumored sequel/remake? And be sure to join us next time when we go from one of Henson’s greatest triumphs to one of his biggest failures, The Dark Crystal.[end-mark] The post <i>Labyrinth</i>: Muppets, Bowie, and the Pain of Impending Adulthood appeared first on Reactor.