May Day Movie Marathon, Part IV

The Manster (1959)
If The Ghoul (1933) doesn't deliver on the horror or (off-screen) carnage, then The Manster more than makes up for it. The movie was made for an American company, United Artists, but it was filmed in Japan with a mix of both Japanese and American cast and crew members. The movie's tone is a mix, too: it feels like an American sci-fi/horror movie from that era (I'm reminded of The Brain that Wouldn't Die (1959)), but the creature's look and origin are as bizarre as any I've ever seen in a Japanese monster movie.

Before we even get to the opening credits, some sort of hairy creature sneaks into a home and brutally kills at least three women. Coincidentally, I watched this movie right after the nearly bloodless The Ghoul. The Manster seems to go out of its way to underscore the difference between a British film of the early '30s and an American/Japanese film of the late '50s by actually splashing blood across a window as the opening titles appear.

We soon find ourselves in the mountain laboratory of Doctor Robert Suzuki, amoral scientist extraordinaire. Immediately upon entering the office, Suzuki asks his secretary, Tara, if "he" has come back. Tara says that she locked him into the laboratory and hands Suzuki a gun. "He" turns out to be Kenji, the most recent product of the good Doctor's work. In his lab, we see that the Doctor keeps a hideously deformed woman named Emiko locked in a cage. When Kenji appears, Dr. Suzuki takes the opportunity to inform the audience that Kenji is his brother and an experiment gone wrong... I mean, he "reminds" the mutated Kenji that he's his brother and an experiment gone wrong. Suzuki finishes off the creature with the pistol and dumps the body into his convenient monster-disposal system; i.e., a shaft that leads into the volcanic heart of the mountain.

Dr. Suzuki goes back up to the front office to find American reporter Larry Stanford. After working for several years as a foreign correspondent in Japan, Larry has been assigned to interview the enigmatic scientist before heading home to his wife in New York. The audience gets another healthy dose of exposition as Dr. Suzuki describes his work on evolution and claims that he has found a way to chemically replicate the effects of the mutagenic cosmic rays that bathed prehistoric Earth.

During this interview, Dr. Suzuki does some "harmless" questioning of his own, claiming that the scientist in him is simply curious. The oddest question is whether or not the reporter has had 'any other companionship' while he's been away from his wife. Larry is mildly offended by the question, but says that he's been "a good boy". This seems to satisfy Suzuki who has pulled down a bottle from the back of his liquor cabinet. After the liquor puts Larry out, Dr. Suzuki injects the reporter with a mysterious fluid.

That's right, Suzuki has decided to continue his experiments literally minutes after having to put down his brother. The hallmark of a good mad scientist is persistence.

When Larry comes to, he accepts the Doctor's offer to see the local sights before returning to the States. It's immediately apparent that Suzuki's mystery chemical has affected a change on Larry. Despite having remained faithful for several years away from home, Larry now seems eager to participate in drunken debauchery on the eve of his return trip while being surrounded by plenty of geishas. When Suzuki includes the attractive Tara in an "innocent" trip to the local mineral baths, Larry abandons all thoughts of returning home. This sudden change in plans and personality have both Larry's wife and Ian, Larry's boss and friend, extremely worried.

Larry's wife is flown out in an attempt to convince him to come back with her, but things don't go well when she catches him and Tara returning to his apartment after a night on the town. Given the choice between his wife and his mistress, Larry dramatically chooses the latter. Despite her threat, his wife decides to stay in Japan for a while longer in hopes of winning him back.

Larry's personality isn't the only thing that's changing. He's had a sore shoulder since the surreptitious injection, but the confrontation with his wife seems to have exacerbated whatever changes are occurring to him. The most minor of these is the scaly patch that's formed around the sore spot. Of greater concern is the fact that his right hand has sprouted hair and claws. That night, the distraught man wanders through the village before entering a monastery. After ranting for a while, Larry kills the Shinto priest.

The next day finds Larry anxious and unable to remember what he's done. He becomes extremely solitary, drinks heavily, and has little patience for Ian's attempts to talk with him. It's during his nighttime wanderings that the creature spawned by Dr. Suzuki's injection completely takes over his personality and he begins stalking and murdering young women. Meanwhile, Suzuki is excited by the obvious changes in Larry, who he says is becoming a new species thanks to his formula. It's not apparent whether or not the Doctor knows that his latest experiment has become as violent as his last.

In a final effort to help his friend, Ian introduces Larry to a psychiatrist. Almost immediately after he drives the two men out of his apartment, Larry experiences a sudden sharp pain in his shoulder...

Up to this point, The Manster has given us a pseudo-werewolf that kills at night and has no memory of his deeds. The only difference between Larry Stanford and Larry Talbot (it's interesting that both are named "Larry") is that Larry Stanford's transformation thus far is only partial and doesn't go away with the rising of the sun. It's after the psychiatrist leaves that The Manster gets seriously weird.

Larry pulls off his robe to find that the scaly patch on his shoulder has turned into an eye!

And I immediately loved this movie

Larry immediately makes a beeline for the psychiatrist's office, kicks in the doors, and frightens the shrink into calling the police. As the horrified doctor watches, Larry's extra eye grows into a hideous second head! Not wanting to be left out, his original face also becomes monstrous. The psychiatrist is dispatched and the two-headed fiend escapes before the police arrive. However, the fact that Larry had been screaming at the doctor only a few hours before makes Ian suspicious.

Did I mention that I love this movie?

Ian admits his fears to the police chief and the local law enforcement are soon on the lookout for the mutant reporter. A long series of chases ensue, with Larry leaving several dead cops in his wake. When the monster returns to his apartment, he comes face to face with his wife, who promptly faints. The chase then continues to the nearby shipyard, where the police again fail to catch the creature. (The police in this movie are about as effective as the Godzilla films' JDF.)

Back at the laboratory, we see that Dr. Suzuki (who has had only one short scene in the past 40 minutes) is finally feeling pangs of conscience. He's developed another serum that he believes will separate Larry from the monster if he's exposed to heat. To further atone for his actions, he's decided to commit ritual suicide. But first he dispatches Emiko, his wife(!), whose deformity had been the result of voluntarily taking an early form of the serum.

Before Suzuki can off himself, though, Larry arrives at the mountain laboratory, which is experiencing significant volcanic activity. The fiend leaves Tara unconscious in the office before stalking into the lab itself. The Doctor quickly injects him with the second serum before being killed. With the police in hot pursuit, Larry escapes the lab and grabs Tara. While running across the mountain, he passes by several volcanic vents. The heat from the vents activates the serum, which causes the two-headed man to split into two beings; Larry himself and the murderous creature that's been growing on his right side. (The waistband of Larry's pants is strangely intact considering that the right side of his body just tore free and became a big furry creature.)

There's a brief struggle between the two and Larry is knocked to the ground. The monster, being a jerk, throws Tara into a volcanic vent. In return, Larry pushes his ugly twin into the same vent. It's only after eliminating his own alibi that his wife and the police show up. As Larry is carried away on a stretcher, Ian and the world's most patient wife contemplate the good and evil present in each man.

The Manster has all the marks of high quality cinema: mad science, serial killing monsters, and a creature that spends the last half hour of the movie with two heads. The best part is that we have no idea what Dr. Suzuki is trying to accomplish. He babbles on about evolution and is apparently trying to create a new race of being, but he doesn't seem to have any real goal. What kind of being is he trying to make? Does he want to evolve the human race or devolve it? What is his purpose? He seems to think that Larry's post-injection hedonism is a good sign, but is that really indicative of what he wants? He's disappointed when he produces bloodthirsty monsters, but isn't that kind of the logical result when you create an evolved/devolved creature with no self-control? In the end it doesn't really matter because Dr. Suzuki gives us a murderous two-headed monster, which is all I was really asking for.
B+

May Day Movie Marathon, Part III

The Ghoul (1933)
The early 1930s saw the release of a number of American horror films from Universal Pictures that are familiar to American and European audiences 80 years later (although precious few have actually taken the time to sit down and watch them). Dracula (1931) is usually credited with starting the trend, followed by Frankenstein in that same year. Subsequent films included The Mummy (1932), The Invisible Man (1933) (although more of a sci-fi film than a horror movie), and The Bride of Frankenstein (1935). Lesser known movies filled the latter half of the decade, including a second Frankenstein sequel: Son of Frankenstein (1939). A number of pseudo-sequels to The Mummy were released in the early '40s, although the most famous monster movie of that decade is probably The Wolf Man (1941).

While the Universal monster movies were seeing diminishing returns by the '40s, and were eventually reduced to self parody with films like Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), the earlier movies were very popular. (Those who think sequel-mania is a recent phenomenon might be surprised by how many monster movies of the late '30s and '40s were sequels of these original films.) It wasn't long before filmmakers on the other side of the Atlantic wanted a piece of the monster movie action, particularly in Britain, but the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) had other ideas.

The BBFC was relatively lenient with imported American horror films (Island of Lost Souls (1932) being a notable exception), apparently believing that Brits wouldn't be overly influenced by the product of a foreign culture. However, they were a lot more strict on domestic movies, making it clear to homegrown filmmakers that American-style horror films would not be tolerated. This proved to be unfortunate for Gaumont-British Picture Corporation. Gaumont had been able to convince Boris Karloff, who had decided to vacation in his home country after the release of The Mummy, to star in a movie technically based on a crime novel but that included elements strongly influenced by Karloff's recent film. While The Ghoul clearly aspires to be a Universal-style horror film, it's undermined by the limits imposed by the British censors.

Our film starts with the confrontation between an antiques dealer and an adherent to an ancient Egyptian cult. (It's funny how many of these older movies, and even the 1999 version of The Mummy, suggest that significant numbers of modern-day Egyptians worship the ancient pantheon.) The cultist demands the return of a jewel called "the Eternal Light" to the tomb from which it was stolen. The dealer no longer has it, having sold it to a Professor Morlant for a sizable portion of his fortune.

When we finally meet Morlant (Boris Karloff!) we find that he's a true believer in the ways of the ancient Egyptians and believes that the Eternal Light is his key to immortality. As he lays dying, the Professor demands that his servant, Laing (Ernest Thesiger! a.k.a., Dr. Pretorius from The Bride of Frankenstein), wrap the jewel in his hand. Morlant believes that, after his death and burial, he will revive the night of the first full moon so that he can make his offering to Anubis. At "the first hour" (which turns out to be 1 AM rather than midnight as one might expect) he will place the Eternal Light in the open palm of a statue of Anubis. If Morlant is found worthy of eternal life, the statue will close its hand over the jewel, signifying that the offering has been accepted.

The deeply Christian Laing strongly disapproves of his boss's beliefs. Failing to pursade Morlant to give up on his pagan ways, he argues that burying the jewel in Morlant's ersatz-Egyptian tomb will deprive the Professor's heirs of their rightful inheritance. With Karloff's characteristic intensity, Morlant warns that any attempt to deprive him of paradise will cause him to rise from the grave with the full moon to wreak a murderous vengeance. Despite this warning, Laing removes the jewel from his master's hand not long after he expires.

Shortly thereafter, the doctor declares Morlant's death by heart failure. Several people notice that the dead man's hand has been recently wrapped, which raises the suspicions of Morlant's shifty-eyed lawyer, Broughton. While going through Morlant's papers, Broughton couldn't help but to notice that his client recently spent a huge sum of money, but that the item or items it purchased are nowhere to be found. That night Morlant is buried in his tomb where the statue of Anubis that had been watching over his death bed has been relocated. As the pallbearers leave, Broughton sneaks back into the tomb to take a look at the wrapped hand, but finds nothing.

Contrary to my expectations, Laing isn't the stereotypical unscrupulous servant who robs his deceased employer for his own gain. While he does take the jewel from the corpse, he does so because he truly believes that the dead shouldn't rob the living. After hiding the Eternal Light, Laing finds the address of Betty Harlon, one of Morlant's heirs. The servant surreptitiously hands Betty a message, but the paper is immediately stolen by Broughton, who had been shadowing Laing. Not long afterward, Betty is visited by the other surviving heir, Ralph Morlant. Although there is some bad blood between Betty's and Ralph's families, Ralph's meeting with the deceased's attorney earlier in the day has convinced him that Brougton is trying to rob both him and Betty of their inheritance. The two set off to Morlant's mansion with Betty's friend, Kaney. Kaney will be our odious comic relief for the rest of the picture. I still cannot understand filmmakers' insistence on including such characters. Even newer films fall into this trap; Transformers (2007) had at least two such characters, neither of whom accomplished anything except to earn the audience's loathing.

Betty, Ralph, and Kaney arrive at the Morlant house to find Broughton there. Of course, the three put little stock in the attorney's claims that he's simply putting his client's papers in order. These are joined by Parson Hartley, the clergyman who had been rebuffed earlier when he tried to give Morlant his last rights. It's not long before the Egyptian antiquities dealer is knocking at the door, claiming to be an associated of Morlant (which isn't entirely untrue). Meanwhile, the dealer's cultist companion skulks around the house looking for any sign of the Eternal Light.

As the mansion becomes the gathering place for various characters, all of them secretly looking for the same valuable object, I see my Mummy-inspired horror film turning into one of the dreaded "spooky-house mysteries". Past the halfway point, just as I'm starting to despair that Karloff's part at the beginning was just a cameo, we see the full moon rise. Despite his earlier disregard for his master's beliefs, Laing starts to show some trepidation. This turns to outright terror when he sees the door to Morlant's tomb open and its angry occupant stride out.

Oh how I wish we actually got what Karloff's character so chillingly promised.

Morlant stalks around and through the house for much of the rest of the film. Although the cultist is dispatched pretty quickly, Laing is spared when he reveals where he hid the jewel. The rest of the titular ghoul's rampage consists of almost killing several people, much to the disappointment of any viewer who is expecting the kind of body count that contemporary American pictures had. (Despite my desperate pleas, he doesn't kill Kaney.) With only minutes to go before 1 AM, Morlant finally obtains the Eternal Light and returns to his tomb. With a knife taken from the cultist's body, he carves a bloody ankh on his chest and places the jewel in the statue's hand. Betty and Ralph arrive in time to see Morlant's offering and watch in amazement as the statue's hand closes over the jewel. With a shout of joy, Morlant falls to the ground dead.

I wish I could say that this was the end of the movie. I wish I could say that Boris Karloff's Professor Morlant had really been an undead ghoul and that the hand of a "heathen image" really did accept the Eternal Light. The offering scene is actually very well done and had the blessed words "The End" appeared immediately after Morlant's death I would have a much higher esteem for the movie. But no, like I Bury the Living (1958), The Ghoul has to give us a "logical explanation" that's nearly as far-fetched as any supernatural one.

So, how does the statue of Anubis accept the jewel? Well, after Morlant's final death, the hand withdraws into the hole where the statue's stone hand had been originally. It turns out that Parson Hartely is a fraud and that he has spent much of the night chiseling off the hand so that he could hide inside the statue and "accept" the offering (since when did the Egyptians make hollow statues?). As the heirs try to stop the faux-parson, the antiquities dealer shows up and takes the Eternal Light. During the scuffle, a bullet damages the tomb's lamp, which is fed by an outside source (plot point!). The dealer makes his exit, locking Hartley and the heirs in the tomb.

In the meantime, a doctor and the police rush to the Morlant house in response to a phone call Ralph placed before entering the tomb. As expected, the doctor declares his belief that the Professor may have actually suffered from a fit of catalepsy so severe as to be almost indistinguishable from death. (I can't help but to mention that a believer in the ancient Egyptian religion would certainly have insisted on being mummified; a process that would definitely prevent a premature burial.)

While making his escape, the dealer drops the Eternal Light where Kaney can find it. Broughton confronts the fleeing Egyptian, who realizes that the odious comic relief has ended up with the MacGuffin. The villains demand the jewel from Kaney at gunpoint but are held at bay when she threatens to drop it in a well.

Back in the tomb, Hartley, Ralph, and Betty are trying to find a way out. Suddenly, the damaged lamp drops and starts an enormous blaze. Hartley reveals that he had previously installed explosives outside of the doors (obviously he hadn't expected the tomb's owner to simply open the doors for him). The advancing flames set the explosives off and Betty and Ralph escape the tomb while Kaney is saved by the timely arrival of the police (drat!).

As usual, watching Boris Karloff is a pleasure, although he should have gotten a lot more screen time. Thesiger is always fun to watch. And with the exception of the obnoxious Kaney, the other characters are completely forgettable and manage not to damage the film too much. But it's the ending that really brings this movie down. I hate a Scooby-Doo ending, especially when it's in a movie from an era known for its supernatural films.

American films from this period had been unashamedly invoking the supernatural with good results, both at home and abroad. The Ghoul obviously wanted to share in that success, securing an actor who gained his fame in American monster movies and filming a story involving Egyptian mysticism and revenge from beyond the grave. However, in The Mummy, this film's obvious inspiration, Karloff's Imhotep isn't a cataleptic or a thief in disguise. Imhotep actually is undead and he uses genuine mystical powers in an attempt to carry out his fiendish plot. It's possible that The Ghoul's filmmakers thought that a spooky-house mystery with a horrific angle would play better than an outright supernatural movie, although it's suspected that the BBFC's strong disapproval of domestic horror movies might have influenced them to take the path of least resistance; i.e., "logical explanations" and mortal villains who are inevitably brought to justice. It's also very likely that the few deaths we see at Morlant's hands reflect Gaumont's fears that the BBFC might not certify the film.

The worst part is that the supposedly logical explanation is completely ridiculous (I Bury the Living is also guilty of this). The Ghoul would have us believe that immediately after providing a very specific warning regarding what would happen if the Eternal Light wasn't buried with him, Morlant could go into a cataleptic fit that is mistaken for death by the attending doctor, just to conveniently come out of the fit and go on a murderous rampage on the night of the full moon; thus seeming to fulfill his threat in exact detail. Then, the movie wants us to believe that Hartley expects Morlant to place the Eternal Light in Anubis' hand and accordingly modifies the statue, even though Laing is the only one who is privy to the Professor's intentions. A supernatural explanation would have held up a lot better than these outrageous coincidences.

One final nitpick: it's obvious that the filmmakers only read enough about Egyptology to pick up a few names, since the movie's version of Egyptian theology is almost entirely unrecognizable. Although Anubis was the god of mummification and the afterlife, I don't believe that adherents of Egypt's ancient religion called upon him to grant eternal life. That was typically the domain of Osiris and Ra. This kind of historical license can be expected in even the best classic horror movies, though.
C+

May Day Movie Marathon, Part II

Vincent Price in his least
melodramatic role ever!

The Last Man on Earth (1964)
I first read Richard Matheson's 1954 novel I Am Legend shortly after seeing the 2007 film adaptation of the same name. As entertaining as it was, I Am Legend (2007) deviates significantly from Matheson's original story, particularly with regards to the climax and the meaning of the title. Despite having a totally different name, The Last Man on Earth is significantly more faithful to its source, to the extent that there are no real surprises for anyone who has read the book.

[Note that this review will contain spoilers for both the film as well as its source.]

Every day of Dr. Robert Morgan's life seems exactly like the one before it. Each morning he wakes up, checks his food supplies, makes sure his generator has enough fuel, does a little woodworking, and drives around the deserted city in his station wagon running errands. Those errands include picking up some fresh garlic, getting new mirrors to replace the smashed ones, throwing corpses into the endlessly burning pit on the outskirts of town, and breaking into homes to stake their undead inhabitants.

As far as he can tell, Dr. Morgan is the "Last Man on Earth", or at least the last living man on Earth. Everyone else succumbed to an invariably fatal disease three years ago... and then awoke looking for human blood. Every night these monsters congregate outside of his home trying to get in. Every night the vampire who was once his friend, Ben Cortman, shouts "Come out, Morgan!" The only thing between Morgan and the vampires are makeshift fortifications, strands of garlic, and mirrors. It also helps that the vampires are relatively weak and lack the intelligence they had in life.

A lengthy flashback reveals that our hero once had a wife and daughter. As the plague swept across the world, Dr. Morgan and others had worked feverishly but futilely to find a cure. Soon some of his fellow laboratory workers had contracted the disease while others like Ben Cortman whispered about the government's sinister reasons for burning the victims' corpses in the massive pit on the edge of town. When the plague hit his household, Morgan told his wife not to let the authorities know that their daughter was ill. While he understood intellectually that the government was burning the victims' bodies in an attempt to contain the disease, he couldn't bear the thought of his daughter being thrown into the smoldering pit. However, a desperate Mrs. Morgan broke down while her husband was at work and called the doctor. Morgan arrived from work later that evening to find an Army truck taking his daughter's body away.

When his wife came down with the disease, Morgan vowed not to let her end up in the pit too. The night after her death, he took her to a nearby field and buried her. In his exhaustion and grief he found himself unable to bury his wife more than a foot or two in the ground. Later that night, while preparing to go to bed, Morgan heard a hoarse voice calling his name. When he opened the door, Morgan found that the bizarre rumors that the plague victims were rising from the dead to prey on the living were most definitely true.

Three years after being forced to kill his undead wife, the last man on Earth has become utterly despondent, his singular immunity to the plague being a curse rather than a blessing. Day after day he searches houses for undead inhabitants and stakes them, but night after night the vampires gather outside his home and torment him. His first glimmer of hope in three years comes one day in the form of a stray dog; the first truly living creature he's seen since the plague completely enveloped the globe. When he finally brings the dog home, its odd behavior concerns him. A blood test shows that the animal isn't immune to the disease after all, and Morgan buries the staked corpse shortly thereafter.

Not long after burying the dog, Morgan finds an even more unexpected surprise during one of his daylight travels: a woman walking through an empty field. The woman, Ruth, startles and runs when he starts yelling, forcing Morgan to chase after her. She's understandably nervous when he takes her to his home near sunset and starts barricading the place. While ecstatic to be speaking to another human being for the first time in years, Morgan starts to suspect that the situation is too good to be true.

When Morgan finally pushes a string of garlic in her face, Ruth nearly vomits. Since one of the characteristics of the infected is an allergic reaction to garlic, the doctor insists that Ruth's blood be tested. She claims that a weak stomach caused the reaction, but other plague symptoms and the vial of vaccine and the syringe that she fails to conceal proves that she's lying. She eventually admits the horrible truth: her people sent her to spy on Morgan. Like herself, Ruth's people are infected but can keep the disease at bay with a vaccine, although many of them remain sensitive to daylight and are therefore nocturnal.

Now, imagine that you believe that you're the last human being on Earth and are convinced that everyone you come across during your daytime hunts is a vampire that must be destroyed. That's right; along with the undead, Morgan has also staked many diseased, but still living, human beings over the past three years. In the eyes of Ruth's people, Morgan is a monster that hunts down and murders innocent people while they sleep.

Soon a well armed mob shows up outside of Morgan's house, destroys all the undead surrounding it, and goes after Morgan himself. The doctor makes a run for it but is eventually caught inside of a church. Having seen that the fiend her people fear is simply a lonely man who didn't know what he was doing, Ruth asks for him to be spared. This goes about as well as can be expected in a movie like this and Morgan takes a few spears to the body. With his last breath, our hero calls his killers freaks and claims that he is the last man on Earth.

I knew beforehand that I would like The Last Man On Earth; it's a Vincent Price movie about a vampire apocalypse! Like Will Smith's I Am Legend, this movie has a strong first half featuring an engaging actor who is able to carry significant portions of the film by himself. While the older movie takes the easy way out and incorporates a lot of voice-over narration to let us in on the protagonist's thoughts, the fact that the narrator is Vincent Price more than makes up for it.

At the same time, I found it lacking in a few places, particularly near the end. By conveying the loneliness and horror of the hero's life as well as it does, it sets the bar for what follows a bit too high. For starters, this horror film isn't all that scary. Only once, when he loses track of time and arrives home late, do the vampires really threaten Morgan. But the creatures' clumsiness and weakness mean that he's able to get back to the safety of his home after only a brief and unsatisfying struggle. Scenes featuring hordes of the undead surrounding your house and calling you out by name should be frightening by their very nature, but the filmmakers present them in a static and unexciting way. The only truly creepy scene is during the flashback when Morgan's wife comes back from the dead. A few more moments like that one would have made The Last Man On Earth a much more effective horror film.

Another shortcoming is in the film's failure to discuss the nature of its sci-fi vampires. All we get from The Last Man On Earth is that the vampires are the result of a disease, that the victims (undead or not) are allergic to garlic and sensitive to light, and that Morgan's stakes are designed to hold open the wound so that "their body seal can't function". We don't get any elaboration on the vampires' self-sealing ability nor why other things like crosses or mirrors also ward them off. Matheson's novel, on the other hand, spends a lot of time explaining why his bacteria-spawned vampires behave according to the legends. The novel's Robert Neville (who isn't a doctor and does his research as a way to distract himself) finds that the vampire bacteria dies when exposed to air. To protect itself, the bacteria introduces a type of glue into the bodies of its victims. Narrow cuts or holes made by bullets seal too quickly for the bacteria to die, but stakes keep the wound open and allow enough air in to kill it. Mirrors and crosses (and Stars of David for those who had been Jewish) work on some vampires since the remnants of their personalities feel remorse or horror when reminded of what they have become. Unfortunately, The Last Man On Earth doesn't go into enough detail and the reason why Morgan feels compelled to replace the mirrors that the creatures smash each night remains unexplained.

Finally, we come to a significant philosophical difference between The Last Man On Earth and I Am Legend. When Neville finds out that he's been killing the living along with the undead, he's devastated. He makes no attempt to escape or hide despite having several weeks or even months between Ruth's warning and her people's attack. It's only when he sees the brutality with which the infected dispatch the undead that he attempts to defend himself, which results in him getting shot before he's captured. Since the infected are certain to execute him (possibly in a very unpleasant manner), Ruth gives Neville some pills to finish off what the gunshot wound started. As the pills do their work, he looks out his cell window at the mobs of the infected and realizes that, to them, he is as frightening and terrible an entity as any vampire had been to him. A being that could walk in broad daylight and killed their friends and family, Neville had become a legend among them.

Like Neville, Dr. Morgan also finds out that he has been killing the living, but if he feels remorse for it he doesn't really show it. Instead of empathizing with the fear and hatred of the infected as Neville does, Morgan calls them freaks and implies that they're no longer human. He had been a likeable character up to this point, but he loses the viewers' sympathy with his refusal to accept that he made a mistake that killed countless innocents.

(I won't go into detail, but even The Last Man On Earth's slightly disappointing ending is better than that of the theatrical cut of 2007's I Am Legend, which tacked an unimaginative Hollywood ending onto an otherwise good movie. The film's alternate ending, which preserves the general idea of Matheson's story, is a lot better.)

On a historical note, horror fans may notice that George Romero's zombie movies (e.g., Night of the Living Dead (1968)) have a lot in common with this film. It's not a coincidence; Romero admitted that he borrowed liberally from Matheson's novel.
B

May Day Movie Marathon, Part I

With the birth of Son of Atomic Spud II a couple weeks ago, I took a two week vacation from work. As I did with the original Son of Atomic Spud, I liked to spend a few hours holding the baby and watching old movies while Bride of Atomic Spud took a nap. After watching a few movies from my Netflix queue, I found that a number of movies were only going to be available for streaming until May 1st. Since I didn't want to miss them, I decided to work through all the soon to be expired movies on my list.

The dozen movies I watched over my vacation varied wildly in quality, release date, and plot. They ranged from an Orson Welles film noir (excellent) to a Larry Buchanan made for TV movie (wretched). The oldest was released in 1935 and the newest was released in 1967. Oddly enough, four of them were released in the '60s, which is unusual for me since I rarely watch anything made during the period from 1960 to 1976. While there was the usual smattering of American sci-fi pictures, there was also a British horror movie at least partially inspired by The Mummy (1932), an Italian film starring Vincent Price, a Korean kaiju film, and a joint Japanese/American production.

I'll be presenting the movies in the order I watched them (as best as I can remember, anyway). Since the newest of these films is about 46 years old, many of these reviews can be expected to contain spoilers.

The Giant neither comes from another
world nor is it from the unknown. Who
knew that '50s movie posters could
be so deceptive?

Giant from the Unknown (1958)
For whatever reason, an unusual number of my favorite movies were released in either 1954 (e.g., Gojira, Them!, Creature from the Black Lagoon) or 1958 (e.g., It! The Terror from Beyond Space, Fiend Without a Face, The Crawling Eye). Unfortunately, Giant from the Unknown will not be joining this list.

When animal mutilations in a small California mountain town are followed by the brutal murder of a local citizen, Sheriff Parker begins to unfairly suspect amateur geologist Wayne Brooks. Brooks pays little attention to the Sheriff's insistence that he not wander far from town and takes archeology professor Frederick Cleveland and his daughter, Janet, up to Devil's Crag in search of evidence for the existence of "the Diablo Giant". Legend has it that the Diablo Giant was a famous conquistador's lieutenant who went AWOL with several other soldiers. The Giant was purportedly an enormous and brutal man who may have passed through the area in search of fortune and glory. Although Brooks has yet to find any Spanish artifacts at the site, a recent thunderstorm removed a lot of the topsoil and may have uncovered something new.

After an apparently futile search, the three accidentally run across the bones and rusted armor of a number of conquistadors. As the sun begins to set, they find an enormous helmet and breastplate in better condition than the other pieces of armor. Brooks also finds an ax buried deeply in the trunk of a fallen tree that he's unable to remove. Since it's dark when they find the armor, they don't realize that the Diablo Giant himself is nearby and laying under only a few inches of dirt. Earlier Brooks had discovered that the rocks and soil of Devil's Crag have the unusual property of preserving living creatures such as the lizard he found in the middle of a rock. It's only a matter of time before he finds out that it also preserved a very large and angry Spaniard.

The Giant extracts himself from his shallow grave and goes on a small-scale rampage, which includes killing a young woman and kidnapping Janet. As expected, the Sheriff blames this new murder and Janet's disappearance on Brooks and takes him into custody. With the help of Professor Cleveland, Brooks makes his escape and goes in search of the kidnapped girl. When the pursuing Sheriff sees the Diablo Giant for himself, he and Brooks become fast allies and the Sheriff's posse is reassigned to monster-hunting duties.

This movie could have been a lot better. The Diablo Giant looks great as his makeup was done by Jack Pierce himself (Pierce did Karloff's makeup for Frankenstein and The Mummy). The acting is passable and the characters are likable enough. I don't much care for plots in which the local law enforcement persecutes the hero with little evidence, though, especially when it takes time away from the monster. As for the Diablo Giant himself, it's unfortunate that he turns out to be one of those slow and clumsy monsters who likes to commit mayhem off-screen and racks up a disappointingly low body count.

Worst of all, the Diablo Giant isn't really a monster in the traditional sense. Although the movie begins by suggesting that the animal mutilation and the first murder are the result of some sort of curse associated with the Indian burial ground at Devil's Crag, the fact that this is an American film from the '50s means that there's a "rational explanation" for the whole thing. (Well, it's as rational as the idea that an unusually large conquistador can be revived after being buried for 500 years can be.) Since the Diablo Giant doesn't represent any sort of supernatural threat, or even an unnatural mutation, he can be dispatched through relatively conventional means and is, in the end, simply a large man with an ax. That's not nearly as cool as the idea of an undead conquistador who has risen from his grave as the instrument of an Indian curse intended to wreak vengeance on the white man.
C+

It would have been more entertaining
if it actually delivered the Ultimate in
Diabolism or Pure terror

Die, Monster, Die! (1965)
H.P. Lovecraft's The Colour Out of Space is one of my all time favorite sci-fi/horror stories. Die, Monster, Die! claims to be adapted from that story and shows evidence that the filmmakers were at least somewhat familiar with Lovecraft's writing in general and The Colour Out of Space in particular. However, the film completely abandons the central premise of Lovecraft's story and replaces it with something that had already been done better by other movies.

Immediately after arriving in the small English town of Arkham (the original story's backwoods American setting has been inexplicably transplanted to Britain), scientist Stephen Reinhardt realizes that he's going to have a hard time getting to his final destination. He's been invited to the Witley mansion, the home of his college girlfriend, but no taxis will take him there, the local bike shop won't rent him a bicycle to get there, and none of the locals will even tell him which way to go. After figuring out the general direction, Reinhardt sets out on foot.

While walking to the mansion, Reinhardt passes the "blasted heath" which is dominated by an enormous crater (enjoy it, Lovecraft fans, this is the most obvious reference to The Colour Out of Space you're going to get). The crater is surrounded by scorched and dead trees that disintegrate at a touch. The American eventually arrives at the Witley house just to find that no one will answer his knocking. When the door drifts open itself, Reinhardt invites himself in and quickly comes face to face with Nahum Witley (Boris Karloff!). The wheelchair-bound master of the house doesn't approve of the visitor at all and insists that he leave. He only relents when his daughter Susan greets Reinhardt and it's revealed that Susan's mother, Letitia Witley, invited the foreigner to the house.

Reinhardt is asked to speak to Letitia, who has come down with an odd disease that makes her sensitive to the light. From the shadows of her curtained bed, Susan's mother begs Reinhardt to take her daughter away from the house. Mrs. Witley doesn't really elaborate on her reasons, although she briefly mentions the disappearance of the Witley's maid, Helga. Reinhardt agrees to leave with Susan, but his girlfriend insists on staying until her mother gets better. Shortly after Reinhardt leaves the room, Nahum starts questioning his wife. Letitia laments the blasphemy of Corbin Witley (Nahum's father) and the fact that he was calling upon the powers of the "Outer Ones" when he died (a reference to many of Lovecraft's stories, although I don't believe the Outer Gods or the Great Old Ones are explicitly mentioned in The Colour Out of Space). Nahum declares that the Outer Ones' gift is a blessing, although recent events suggest that the master of the house is seriously deluded.

The butler's mysterious death and burial by Nahum, the locked greenhouse with its pulsing green glow, and the attack by an apparently insane Helga suggests to Reinhardt that something odd is going on at the Witley house. Susan shows Reinhardt a secret entrance to the greenhouse, which proves to contain enormous plants and vegetables. When they follow odd screeches and howls into an adjacent shed, they find a bizarre menagerie of misshapen creatures in cages. The chunks of glowing crystal in the plants' pots leads Reinhardt to conclude that the plants and creatures are radiation-spawned mutations. Susan reveals that Helga, Letitia, and the butler had all worked in the greenhouse before Nahum saw the need to padlock it.

Lo and behold, the "gift" that Nahum Witley believes was sent by the Outer Ones is in fact a radioactive meteor, the bulk of which is being kept in a pit in the mansion's basement. Shortly after Reinhardt and Susan return to the house, Letitia is found to be missing from her bed. The mutated and violent woman is finally found after a drawn out search involving various false scares. After briefly attacking her family, the matriarch takes a fall from a balcony and her horribly deformed body melts away in the rain.

Concluding that the meteor is a punishment for Corbin's sins rather than a gift to restore the fortunes of the Witley house, Nahum goes into the basement to destroy it. The patriarch is attacked by Helga who ends up falling into the meteor's pit. The radioactive crystal shatters, annihilating the mutant maid and transforming Witley into a glowing tinfoil fiend (I assume the monster is played by someone other than Karloff since the venerable actor could hardly walk by this point in his life). In a rare demonstration of heroic competence, Reinhardt defends himself from the monster with the axes decorating the walls of the mansion rather than miscellaneous items like breakaway chairs or tables. An ill-advised rush at Reinhardt sends Mutant Nahum through a guardrail and down to the floor below (there sure is a lot of falling in this movie). The creature's body shatters like stone and the resultant sparking starts a fire. Reinhardt and Susan emerge from the burning house, presumably to start a new life.

Die, Monster, Die! isn't necessarily a bad film, but it's a bit too slow. Worse, it eagerly deviates from its source material and heads off in a decidedly less interesting direction that had already been taken by dozens of movies before it.

Throughout his stories, Lovecraft eschewed the overtly supernatural in favor of science fictional horror. A "Lovecraftian Demon" is typically an ancient transdimensional being rather than a fiend from the Infernal Pit of Judeo-Christian belief. While many of his stories involve cultists who worship or attempt to summon beings such as Cthulhu or Yog-Sothoth, the subjects of the cultists' belief are invariably intelligences from distant galaxies or realms outside of our space-time continuum. If you removed the element of horror, these beings are not unlike something you might see on an episode of Star Trek.

While a basic knowledge of who the Old Ones are is often necessary to understand Lovecraft's stories, The Colour Out of Space never explicitly references them. Instead, this particular sci-fi/horror story involves an encounter between a family on a small, out of the way farm and an utterly alien intelligence or intelligences. The beings arrive on Earth by way of a strange meteor that lands near the farmhouse's well and gradually disintegrates. Shortly thereafter, the plant and animal life on the farm begin to transform; the crops grow early in the season and reach an enormous size, although their taste is horrendous. The family even swears that the trees near the meteor's impact site sway by themselves. After a season of riotous growth, the crops and trees turn to ash and the region is changed into what the locals refer to as "the blasted heath".

The plant life isn't merely dying; it's being consumed by the aliens. As lifeforms around the farm are reduced to dust, the intelligences increasingly manifest themselves as an indescribable "colour" that seems to live in or around the well. As they feed on the humans, the affected family members go insane and, like the plants and livestock, are slowly reduced to a gray powder.

Rather than taking advantage of Lovecraft's extremely original alien invasion story, the filmmakers decide to give us the standard radiation-spawned monster story that was ubiquitous in the '50s. Sure, they throw in a reference to the Outer Ones to justify their claim that this is a Lovecraft adaptation, but the film seems to be saying that Corbin's blasphemy and Nahum's belief that the meteor is a gift from the Outer Ones is merely a superstition. The true cause of the tragedy is the disastrous effects of radiation, which the Witleys don't understand but Reinhardt, the scientist, does.

Personally, I'd rather see a more faithful version of Lovecraft's story.
B

On the INL Plutonium Exposure Controversy

Warning! Do not eat the plutonium!

Recently, my mother brought an AP article published in the Idaho Falls Post-Register and the online version of The Oregonian to my attention. The article briefly discusses a complaint filed with OSHA against Battelle Energy Alliance (BEA) by two employees. In 2011, 16 employees, including the two who filed the complaint, were exposed to plutonium contamination at the Materials and Fuels Complex (MFC), which is one of the many facilities at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) (the official Accident Investigation Report can be found here). Of course, the article actually says that they were exposed to "plutonium radiation", which once again shows that the media has no interest in learning the difference between radiation and radioactive contamination. Anyway, as part of their complaint, the two employees claim that the 2011 incident occurred after they had expressed safety concerns over several different jobs.

Let me start by saying that I don't deny that the employees involved have a genuine complaint with regards to the incident itself. Had they been assigned to work a properly planned and engineered job, the spread of contamination would have been avoided. As a matter of fact, I heard about the incident the day it happened; my first response was "why didn't they just use a glovebox?" I wasn't too surprised when I found that Table C-1 in the official report states that the problem would not have occured if they had done exactly that.

Regardless of the errors made, I have a low tolerance for the perpetuation of inaccuracies or falsehoods with regards to the nuclear field. While I could criticize or question the article's statements (and the employees' complaints if it's assumed that the article accurately reports them) on several of fronts, I want to address a detail that is completely wrong. Specifically, one of the primary examples given of a safety concern that was supposedly ignored by BEA turns out not to have been a safety problem at all in light of the radioactive properties of plutonium. The fact that the workers still believe that it was an issue shows that the January 2012 report's statement that "Workers did not understand the consequences of Pu contamination" apparently remains true. According to the article:

Twice in 2011, BEA allegedly refused to allow Stanton and Simmons to use lead shielding to protect themselves when handling plutonium. Both workers exercised their right to stop the jobs, according to the complaint.

Let me cover a few of the most basic radiation types encountered in nuclear power and then we'll see why this particular claim is entirely baseless.

Alpha Radiation: Alpha radiation or alpha decay is the emission of particles from a radioactive isotope. These particles have two protons and two neutrons and are simply helium nuclei with a significant amount of kinetic energy. However, alpha particles present very little external risk since their kinetic energy is expended after traveling through a few centimeters of air or striking something as flimsy as paper or the dead layer of cells on a person's skin. Once stopped, an alpha particle is rendered harmless. Alpha particles only become dangerous when a strong alpha-emitting isotope enters the body. Internal tissues can become severely damaged since they aren't protected by a dead layer of cells like the skin is.

Beta Radiation: Beta radiation is the emission of electrons or positrons (which have the same mass as an electron but are positively charged) from the nucleus of a radioactive isotope. Beta particles don't have as much kinetic energy as alpha particles, although they have greater penetrating power. A beta particle can be stopped by sheets of metal, plastic, or glass. While beta particles have the potential to penetrate the outer layers of a person's skin, personnel working with a beta-emitting isotope are generally protected by the plastic walls of a glove box or by anti-contamination clothing. Since beta particles can penetrate the cornea, personnel may wear goggles or a face shield to protect their eyes.

Gamma Radiation: Gamma radiation is the emission of high energy photons with high penetrating power. Dense materials such as lead or steel are typically used to shield significant gamma-emitting sources, although a generous layer of water or concrete can perform the same function.

Neutron Radiation: Neutron radiation is the emission of free neutrons that usually occurs as the result of nuclear fission. Neutrons can also be produced by exposing certain light elements such as beryllium to an alpha-emitter. Neutron radiation is only effectively shielded by water or other hydrogenous materials such as oil or polymers.

Here's where the INL workers' complaint about the lead shielding falls apart. The workers claim that they weren't allowed to use lead shielding to protect themselves while working with plutonium. However, as I mentioned above, dense shielding is used to protect against gamma radiation, which is highly penetrating. Plutonium, on the other hand, is an alpha-emitter. Unless you have a critical mass (in which case you've started a lethal fission reaction and anything short of a reactor vessel isn't going to save you), plutonium is only a threat if it gets inside your body. As explicitly stated by the EPA, the external risk presented by plutonium is very small since it emits almost no gamma or beta radiation. BEA did not endanger the two employees by disallowing them from using lead shielding since such shielding is completely unnecessary to protect people from an alpha-emitter like plutonium.

I can understand why BEA would have disallowed its employees from using lead shielding while working with plutonium. Once BEA had conceded to allowing two employees to install useless shielding because it made them feel better, the company would be compelled to use "feel-good" shielding all the time. The allowance would simply perpetuate the myth among employees that lead shielding is effective and necessary for handling plutonium. Personally, I would never engineer a job to use unnecessary shielding for that very reason, although I would make sure to explain my reasoning to the workers to avoid any misunderstandings.

There's a lot more I could say about the article and the complaint filed by the two employees (I actually deleted a third of my draft before posting because it became too long and unfocused). For example, I believe that the purported retaliation didn't necessarily have sinister motivations, although I don't have any inside sources on this matter. The employees' claim that their radiation dosage information was withheld might sound suspicious, but may simply reflect the fact that dose assessments following exposure to an alpha-emitter are very difficult to perform. Page 61 of the accident report acknowledges that the measurements needed to complete the assessment might have to made over a period of months or even years.

Nuclear power has many enemies who latch onto any accusation of safety violations in support of their cause. Much too often, these anti-nuclear groups take advantage of the public's ignorance of the science to get their way. Inaccuracies like those found in the AP article and the employees' complaint are inevitably used to frighten the public away from an effective and safe form of power.

[The above represents my own opinions and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of my employer, BEA, or the INL.]

2012 Family Movie Reviews, Part III: ParaNorman

This odd little film was made by Laika, Inc., which specializes in stop-motion animation and made a name for itself in 2009 with Coraline. I enjoyed both films quite a bit since I generally like strange movies. ParaNorman won't appeal to all viewers, but the people it was made for should enjoy it.

Norman, a young zombie-movie fanatic, lives in the town of Blithe Hollow, Massachusetts. Like Cole in The Sixth Sense (1999), Norman can see and talk to dead people. Since he makes no attempt to hide his gift and openly talks to ghosts while others are around, the boy has become an outcast and a frequent target of bullies.

As is the case in almost any movie based in a small Massachusetts town, Blithe Hollow's history includes witch trials. The most famous of these trials ended with a terrible curse being placed on the judge and jury that sentenced the witch to death. According to the legend, the seven were cursed to eventually rise from the dead and plague the town. No one takes the story seriously, of course, but it keeps the tourists coming. As the 300th Anniversary of the curse approaches, Norman finds himself taking part in a school play depicting the witch trial. During the dress rehearsal, Norman has a vision in which he's being pursued through the forest by Puritan townsfolk. During the play itself, he has an even more intense vision, which ends with Norman screaming "Everybody is going to die!" in front of a bemused audience.

As if the visions weren't enough, Norman is soon approached by his crazy uncle Prenderghast who tries to convince him he has to undertake a ritual at the witch's grave to prevent the curse from being fulfilled. It turns out that Norman's gift is hereditary and that the aging Prenderghast has been using his power to keep the witch's ghost asleep. On the eve of the witch's awakening, Norman's uncle dies without performing the ritual. In a hilarious scene, his ghost visits Norman in the school restroom and explains about the book he's been using to keep the witch at bay for years. As the sun begins to set, Norman sneaks out of his house and makes his way to the graves of the cursed townsfolk, assuming that the witch is also buried there, and begins to read the book. When Alvin, Norman's most dedicated antagonist, decides to give Norman a hard time, the ritual goes unfinished and the undead judge and jury emerge from their graves. As much as he likes movie zombies, Norman doesn't much care for the real thing and spends much of the rest of the movie being pursued by shambling Puritan corpses. With Prenderghast dead, only Norman's special ability can bring an end to the witch's curse.

While the above summary sounds pretty horrific for a family film, ParaNorman is actually pretty funny and the zombies are played mostly for laughs. Just as Frankenweenie spoofs classic horror films, this film spoofs more modern horror films made after Night of the Living Dead (1968). It's not a direct spoof, though, and ParaNorman actually makes fun of the fact that the townsfolk expect the victims of the witch's curse to behave like film zombies. The movie also takes a surprise turn a bit past the one hour mark that, while somewhat predictable, makes for an interesting story.

ParaNorman doesn't have as wide an appeal as Frankenweenie or Wreck-It Ralph and wasn't as popular with my family as those other two films. My oldest and youngest daughters enjoyed it quite a bit, but my middle daughter and Bride of Atomic Spud weren't particularly impressed. Also, while all three movies are rated PG, ParaNorman is a bit less family friendly. Wreck-It Ralph might as well have been G-rated while Frankenweenie deserved it's PG rating for some mild scares and the general theme of reanimating the dead. Some of the humor in ParaNorman is a little more crude and there's some relatively mild swearing. That's not to say that the film deserves a PG-13 rating (it's far cleaner than many of the PG movies that I grew up with), but parents with younger children might want to screen the movie first.
B+

2012 Family Movie Reviews, Part II: Wreck-It Ralph

As anyone who has seen the ads will know, Wreck-It Ralph is essentially a video game version of Toy Story (1995). Just as Woody and Buzz have adventures while humans aren't looking, Wreck-It Ralph and the other video game characters follow secret lives when the arcade shuts down and their actions are no longer directed by the players or the games' programming. During this time, characters are able to visit other video games' worlds through a shared power strip appropriately called "Game Central Station". The power strip has also become a refuge for homeless characters whose games have malfunctioned or lost popularity and been unplugged. When the "Out of Order" sign appears on a screen, the game's residents prepare to make a run for the power strip to avoid being trapped in an unplugged game.

Like the toys in Toy Story, the video game characters have certain rules and restrictions that are essential to the plot. For example, characters can die and regenerate over and over again in their own game. However, as explained by Sonic the Hedgehog in a public service announcement, if you die in another game, you can't regenerate. Additionally, a glitching character can't leave his or her own game. While some of these rules seem a bit arbitrary, there's another that has a much more obvious rationale: characters from one video game aren't supposed to interfere with another game while a player is present. This act is called "going Turbo" and is named after the titular character of a racing game called Turbotime. As seen in a flashback, Turbotime was the most popular racing game in the arcade in what appears to be the early '80s. When a newer racing game was installed, Turbo became jealous and entered the new game to sabotage it. Turbo's absence from his own game and his actions in the new one convinced the arcade manager that both games were malfunctioning, which led to both being unplugged.

This brings us to the story of Wreck-It Ralph, the villain of a classic game called Fix-It Felix, Jr.. The game's premise is that Ralph had been some kind of squatter who was displaced when an apartment complex was built. As the vengeful Ralph tries to wreck the building, Fix-It Felix races to repair the damage with his golden hammer. At the end of each successful level, Felix is awarded a medal while the apartment residents toss Ralph off the roof and into a mud puddle. Once the arcade closes, however, a downcast Ralph attends "Bad-Anon" support meetings. In one of the funniest scenes in the movie, we find that most villains (including perpetual kidnapper of princesses, Bowser) aren't even remotely villainous and are simply forced to play their part game after game. Unfortunately, most video game characters don't understand the villains' essential role and don't appreciate them. At the end of each meeting the villains repeat their affirmation: "I'm bad and that's good, I will never be good and that's not bad, there's no one I'd rather be than me."

Ralph isn't satisfied with being himself, though, especially when he finds that he's not been invited to the game's 30th anniversary party. While Felix is relatively kind to Ralph, the apartment residents despise him and declare that he will never be allowed to join them until he earns a medal like Felix does. That night, Ralph wanders off, determined to get a medal. The residents become concerned when the arcade opens the next morning and there's no Ralph to wreck their apartment. The lack of the villain leads to the dreaded "Out of Order" sign on their game and Fix-It Felix's inhabitants realize that they may soon be homeless. Felix, the designated hero, decides to go out looking for his nominal arch-nemesis.

Meanwhile, Ralph has entered the new first-person shooter game, Heroe's Duty, disguised as one of Sergeant Tamora Calhoun's nameless grunts. This represents a significant risk since such characters are typically eaten by the game's cybernetic insects called "Cy-Bugs". (Unlike other villains, the Cy-Bugs are mindless and act more like viruses.) Ralph eventually gets a mostly unearned medal but an errant escape pod sends him and a stowaway Cy-Bug egg out of the game, through the terminal, and into a candy-themed racing game called Sugar Rush. His medal ends up in the hands of a Vanellope von Schweetz, a character within Sugar Rush who perpetually wants to race but has been disallowed by King Candy because she's a glitch. When Vanellope uses some subterfuge and Ralph's medal to enter the race, Ralph is forced to help her build a candy racer so she can win the race and get his medal back. In the meantime, Felix and Calhoun join forces to find Ralph and the missing egg. What our heroes don't know is that King Candy's motivation for preventing Vanellope from racing runs deeper than a simple prejudice against glitches. They also don't realize that the Cy-Bug egg has since hatched and that Cy-Bugs are rapidly reproducing underneath the surface of Sugar Rush.

One of the first things that almost every viewer of Wreck-It Ralph will notice are the ubiquitous video game references; everything from the first Atari games up to today's high resolution first-person shooters. For my wife and I, one of the funniest shows a character accessing a game's programming by entering UP, UP, DOWN, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT, B, A on a classic NES controller. This code was burned into the memory of nearly every member of our generation. (Is it even possible to beat Contra without the 30 life code?) However, the numerous jokes that were previewed in Wreck-It Ralph's advertising had actually concerned me at first; there are already too many movies that strive to pack as many pop-culture references as possible into their running time while completely losing sight of things like characters and plot. Fortunately, the video game-related gags in Wreck-It Ralph are merely the icing on the cake. The characters are endearing and the story is on par with many of Pixar's films.

The film also has some very clever original ideas. For example, characters in games with static screens, such as Fix-It Felix, Jr., see the human world through a giant window floating in the air. In a first-person shooter, on the other hand, the player is seen through a widescreen monitor mounted on a tracked robot holding a gun. The film also makes fun of the odd video game logic that humans simply accept; e.g., that Felix's golden hammer fixes things when he hits them with it. During one scene, after being struck numerous times in the face, Felix actually fixes it by... hitting it with his hammer. Given the rules of Felix's game, hitting himself with a hammer is the logical thing to do. However, it surprises Calhoun since her newer game doesn't depend on the backwards logic of so many 8-bit games.

It's a shame that, for all its cleverness and the quality of its characters and story, Wreck-It Ralph was made for a narrow demographic and is unlikely to become as timeless as its apparent inspiration. The Toy Story films make a lot of references to well known toys and games, but nearly all of these are still current and recognizable nearly twenty years after the release of the first film. Wreck-It Ralph, on the other hand, was made for adults who were raised on an Atari or the Nintendo Entertainment System and whose children are being raised on a Wii, X-Box 360, or PlayStation 3. While my parents would probably enjoy the story, they wouldn't understand the majority of the video game-related jokes. And I suspect that within 20 years, gags such as the classic cheat code being entered on an NES controller will go completely over most viewers' heads. I wouldn't be surprised if only Mario and Sonic, who are still going strong decades after they were introduced, will be recognized by my grandchildren.

My only real issue with the film is the lack of explanation for some of the restrictions on the video game characters. (This would probably bother only those who are nitpicky about details.) Obviously, the real reason why characters can't regenerate in another video game and glitches can't leave their own game is because it's necessary for the plot, which isn't a very satisfying answer. I would have much preferred some sort of in-universe explanation that each character is supposed to represent a discrete program that isn't fully supported by other games. While a game's programming can recreate its own characters, it can't do the same for visiting characters. Presumably glitching characters would require constant support from their own game to continue to exist, which would prevent them from leaving.

I suppose it could be said that these rules are no more arbitrary than those in Toy Story. With few exceptions, the toys consistently act like inanimate objects while humans are looking. Even toys that lack self-awarenes and have no reason to behave this way follow the rule; e.g., a brand new Buzz Lightyear. I may be more accepting of the toys' behavior since the concept of living toys is a lot more bizarre than the idea that they follow certain rules. But the premise of sentient computer programs is so common in science fiction (and has been seriously discussed as a a future possibility) that you expect the rules governing their universe to have a more logical explanation than "just because".

This issue aside, Wreck-It Ralph's intended audience will find it hilarious for its depiction of the lives of our favorite video game characters (or they could have been our favorites had Fix-It Felix, Jr. been a real game). Even better, Disney has managed to produce a good imitation of Pixar's films by making a movie that's funny without being hollow.
A-