10 Insane Movie Theories You Won't Believe

2. Labyrinth Is About Mind Control

If your childhood didn't involve regular viewings of Labyrinth then, well, you had a pretty deprived childhood. You almost certainly have a negligence case against your parents, owing to the immature and unfinished adult you have grown into as a result of never getting to see Jennifer Connelly being spirited off to a nightmarish fantasy world after wishing her baby brother would be taken away by goblins, where she's menaced by a bunch of creepy-looking Muppets and David Bowie's codpiece. A classic of that niche genre of terrifying kid's fantasy films made in cooperation with Jim Henson (just this and The Dark Crystal, really), Labyrinth is a classic of eighties cinema that's as brilliant today as it was back then. Magic Dance hasn't aged a day, you hear us? If that's not enough to convince you, how about some outlandish fan theories?

Your more basic readings of Labyrinth has it as a metaphor for Jennifer Connelly's pubescent hero getting her period - a scary new experience which involves strange men suddenly lusting over her - but basically every film about teenagers is about their hormones and changing bodies. Go a little deeper, meanwhile, and you'll discover a cache of nutters you think the whole thing's about mind control. In fact it's a "blueprint to mind control", a covert guide to brainwashing somebody into becoming a Manchurian Candidate-style sleeper agent, ready to be activated and assassinate the Malaysian prime minister. Disguised as a film for children. Connelly's Sarah and her quest through the titular maze represent her programming, the Fire Gang symbolise "dissociation from reality", the enchanted peach she munches stand in for the psychotropic drugs used in most forms of mind control, and at the end she attends an Illuminati-esque costume party. Obviously.