Book Review: Unwind

Unwind by Neal Shusterman

My wife, whose taste leans towards juvenile sci-fi literature, is often trying to get me to read her favorite books. I keep telling her that the reason I haven't read them isn't because they don't interest me, but because I already have plenty of Star Wars, Star Trek, Warhammer 40,000, and various classic sci-fi books to read.

After she finished Unwind, my wife strongly encouraged me to read it. The premise sounded interesting enough that I described the idea of it to several coworkers. The next thing I knew, I had lent the book to at least three coworkers, each of whom loved it.

While I try to catch up on sleep during the 60+ minute bus ride to work, I always keep a book in my backpack for the return trip. Not long ago I found myself about to rush to the bus stop without a book since I had finished Something Wicked This Way Comes the day before (this is another novel I would highly recommend). I didn't have time to grab one of my own books from downstairs, so I picked up Unwind from our living room bookshelf (we have over half a dozen overloaded bookshelves spread throughout the house).

The book takes place in the indeterminate future. (The closest we get to a date is the statement that iPods were used by a character's grandparents and that it's been at least a decade since unwinding began.) America is still recovering from a second civil war known as the "Heartland War". Apparently the debate over abortion had finally reached the level of an armed conflict between the "Life Army" and the "Choice Brigade". Desperate to end the fighting, neutral parties proposed the "Bill of Life"; a compromise so horrifying that they believed that it would make both sides see reason. Contrary to their expectations, the Life Army and the Choice Brigade accepted the compromise and agreed to end the war.

Abortion is illegal under the Bill of Life. However, the bill makes it easy for unwanted infants to be either left at a State Home or "Storked"; i.e., left on the doorstep of a person who is then legally required to care for the child (or send it to a State Home). The other aspect of the bill is the legalization of a method to eliminate older unwanted children without technically killing them (or so it's claimed). Legal guardians can sign an irrevocable "unwind order" for any unwanted minors over the age of 13. Unwinding involves the surgical dismemberment of a minor at one of the many harvest camps spread throughout the country. Those parts are then transplanted into the sick or injured.

The majority of society has convinced itself that an unwound person is not dead, but that he or she is "living in a divided state". In fact, even a number of religions encourage the "tithing" of children; i.e., serving God by dedicating a child to be unwound for the benefit of mankind. Other motivations for unwinding children are less philanthropic and usually involve strained budgets or troublesome youths. While society as a whole tends to consider unwinding to be beneficial or simply as something to be ignored, most youth who are sentenced to be unwound have a much different view of it. Some attempt to evade the law, becoming "AWOL Unwinds".

This brings us to the story of Connor (a troubled teen whose parents just don't want to handle him anymore), Risa (a State Home ward who, like so many others, is the latest victim of budget cuts), and Lev (a tithe who has spent his whole life preparing to be unwound). After discovering that his parents have signed the unwind order, Connor goes AWOL. While being pursued by the "Juvey-cops", he causes a pileup on the freeway and, out of desperation, pulls Lev out of a nearby car to use as a hostage. When he finds out that his hostage is a tithe on his way to harvest camp, Connor believes that his actions now constitute a rescue. Lev, on the other hand, sees them as the disruption of his ordained fate and attempts to get away. When he tries to return to the car, Lev is unexpectedly told by his pastor to run away from what he had long been told was his divinely appointed destiny. When Lev is hit by a tranquilizer bullet meant for Connor, Connor picks up the unconscious tithe and makes a break for it. In the meantime, the bus carrying Risa to her eventual unwinding becomes part of the pileup. In the commotion, Risa also makes her escape. The three soon end up together and on the run from the law. Although he convinces Connor and Risa that he is also trying to avoid unwinding, Lev continues to believe that he is destined to be unwound.

Orson Scott Card has said that authors of modern juvenile literature are some of the best in the business since they not only have to create an engaging story, but they also have to keep the plot moving to maintain the interest of their audience. Shusterman certainly does that with Unwind. After several close calls, Lev becomes separated from Connor and Risa and has a number of experiences that change his mind about unwinding and cause him to view his parents' decision to tithe him with anger and bitterness. Connor and Risa find themselves in an Underground Railroad-type operation meant to rescue runaway unwinds and send them to the Graveyard; an aircraft scrapyard ran by a retired admiral who wants to save unwinds for mysterious purposes. By the novel's end, Shusterman introduces the reader to life in a harvest camp and presents us with a genuinely disturbing sequence; a first person description of the actual unwinding process.

As unsettling as Unwind can be, it's an excellent novel in a number of ways. The characters are well developed and grow throughout the story. And we don't just care about the fates of Connor, Risa, and Lev; Shusterman also ensures that we can find sympathy even for the unlikable characters. Additionally, the author keeps the story moving, never allowing the plot to become boring or to stagnate. At the same time, it never feels like the novel loses its focus or tries to cram too many events or characters into the story. The novel's prose is also excellent. Like Orson Scott Card, Shusterman uses clear and effective language that never draws too much attention to itself. (As much as I enjoyed Something Wicked This Way Comes, Bradbury's writing is so convoluted that I often had problems distinguishing his metaphors from literal descriptions.) Finally, one of the greatest strengths of Unwind is its ability to persuade the reader that, no matter how horrifying the idea seems, an otherwise rational people could convince itself that unwinding is acceptable.

Why does Unwind seem credible? First, Shusterman shows that society has allowed itself to accept the bizarre idea that a person can continue to live in a "divided state" that is somehow meaningful. This belief has become so dogmatic that people are actually insulted when it is questioned. When Risa becomes upset upon being told by the State Home officials that she is to be unwound, she makes the mistake of saying that death is always hard to accept. At that point, the State Home's lawyer declares that unwinding isn't death but simply "living in a divided state" and reprimands her for using such inflammatory language. That's right, Risa's the one who's going to be dismantled yet the representatives of the State are the ones who are offended. This legal redefinition of life echoes a disturbing statement found in the book Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions, which was co-authored by President Obama's science czar, John Holdren, in 1973. The book, which is focused on the so-called "Population Bomb" attempts to redefine when one becomes a human being as some point well after birth:

The fetus, given the opportunity to develop properly before birth, and given the essential early socializing experiences and sufficient nourishing food during the crucial early years after birth, will ultimately develop into a human being.

The absurdities of Unwind become horrifyingly plausible when real life individuals in respectable positions (and who are able to gain significant political influence) actually make such statements.

Second, Shusterman shows that, with the notable exception of tithed children, most adults assume that unwinds are all troublesome teenagers who deserve their fates. Many adults, and even some teenagers who have been sentenced to unwinding, believe that troubled youths might actually be happier in a divided state. While there are a number of violent, disturbed, or criminally inclined kids in the story, many unwinds are the victims of tight budgets or are being discarded by reluctant legal guardians who just don't want to support them anymore. In one of the most tragic cases, parents in the middle of a bitter divorce decide to have their son unwound since neither wants their ex-spouse to get custody of him.

Third, the future society has convinced itself that the good that comes out of unwinding outweighs whatever moral dilemmas it may present. At one point a runaway unwind who had benefited from a transplanted lung when he was younger says that unwinding is a good thing, he just doesn't want it to happen to him. I don't know Shusterman's opinion on abortion or the use of fetal stem cells, but the arguments in support of using body parts from unwinds often directly mirror the real-life arguments used to support the use of stem cells obtained from abortions.

In summary, life is cheap in the society of Unwind. What's left of the collective conscience is mollified with the legal redefinition of life, ignorant declarations that unwinds deserve their fate, and the belief that the ends justify the means. I believe that many readers will look at our current society and, by projecting modern attitudes and trends a couple generations forward, be able to see a future not unlike that of Unwind. Not only does Shusterman give us an exciting story with characters we care about, but he also gives us something that goes deeper than a story of survival in an unjust society.

As a side note, I was surprised when I came to sympathize with Connor's character more than with his companions, Risa and Lev. I thought this would be difficult at first given that, of the three, Connor is the only one being unwound because of his violent temper and propensity towards fighting. However, during their stay at a warehouse used to smuggle runaway unwinds to safety, Connor explains to Risa why he's been trying to stay away from all the other kids; it's an attempt to control his outbursts. He admits that many of his violent episodes have occurred because of his reaction to groups of people, noise, and continuous commotion. In addition to the fighting, he relates the story of how he impulsively threw a dish at a cabinet during a large family event because he was overwhelmed by the noise of so many conversations. Such situations are like having 'ants in his brain'. I immediately recognized my own issues with crowds and social situations in Connor's character and couldn't help but to identify with him. This kind of problem triggers a person's fight-or-flight instinct; for me it's flight and for Connor it's fight. I don't know how many other readers will understand how strong this reaction is, but I can assure them that it's very difficult to overcome. Shusterman seems to understand this challenge so well that I have to wonder if he is also strongly introverted.
A

Another Bachelor Movie Marathon, Part IV

I Bury the Living (1958)
This could easily have been the best movie I watched during this marathon. It could have been that rarest of cinematic creatures: a good '50s supernatural suspense/horror film. But no, it had to go and ruin everything in the last few minutes. And because of this last minute failure, the title of best movie of the marathon remains with Island of Lost Souls.

(To show how this movie is totally ruined by a mere few minutes, this review will contain a lot of spoilers)

The Kraft family is hugely influential in its hometown. Not only because they have wealth, but because its members oversee a number of vital institutions free of charge as a service to the community. Robert Kraft has recently become the chairman of the local cemetery, although most of the heavy lifting is taken care of by the aging Scottish caretaker Andy MacKee.

Dominating the shack that serves as the cemetery's office is a map of all the plots and the names of their owners. Plots that have been purchased but whose owners are still alive are marked with white pins, whereas occupied plots are marked with black pins. On his first day, one of Kraft's friends and the friend's new bride purchase two plots. The new chairman, not paying attention, inserts two black pins into the map. A short time later the newlyweds are killed in a car crash.

Of course Kraft finds it an eerie coincidence that his mistaken pins seem to have predicted the tragedy. The more he thinks about it, the more it bothers him. So, to put his mind at ease, he randomly replaces a white pin with a black pin and goes home for the evening. Soon afterward the owner of the plot with the switched pin color dies of seemingly natural causes.

Kraft confides in his uncle that he's beginning to feel like he killed those three people. His uncle laughs it off and convinces him to switch one more pin to prove how ridiculous his concerns are. The pin of the previous cemetery chairman is switched... and the man's fate is sealed. The man soon dies.

Our hero, approaching panic, contacts the police and tells them what's happened. The police try to calm him down, telling him that all of their investigations concluded that none of the deaths were caused by foul play. Kraft is unconvinced and begs the committee to release him as chairman. The three committee members insist on a final test; they demand that Kraft replace their white pins with black ones. The odds of all three dying at the same time are so remote that it will prove that there's nothing to the chairman's fears.

Kraft spends the night in the cemetery office, making frequent phone calls to verify that the other committee members are still alive. Soon, one is found dead in his home. Another dies only a few hours later. The final committee member, Kraft's uncle, visits the office. Although he claims that it's all nonsense, he's clearly in a panic and switches his own pin back to white, declaring that he's defeated fate. Later, when Kraft is told that his uncle never returned home, he goes out to look for him. He finds him dead in his car; he never made it off the cemetery grounds.

The police, finally believing that something strange may be going on, visit the cemetery office again. They give the chairman one more task; switch the pin of someone who is currently in France on business. All those who have died recently died within the town; perhaps this time it will be different. Kraft does as he's told, but he's convinced that he's about to murder yet another innocent.

Believing that the power to kill with the black pins lies within himself, Kraft goes mad with guilt. If he can kill with the black pin, he reasons, why can't he restore life with the white pin? Shaking, the cemetery chairman replaces the black pins of the recently deceased with white pins. He barricades the door and windows of the office, afraid that the reanimated will seek revenge, and waits for the inevitable. As he waits, the cemetery map seems to stare at him. It's not long before recently carved headstones tumble over and the soil over fresh graves is upturned.

Now, let's take a break here. At this point I'm on the edge of my seat thinking that this is one of the best classic movies I've ever seen. The buildup to this climax has been great, although the horror has been entirely psychological. Unlike my other favorites from 1958 like It! The Terror from Beyond Space (supposedly the uncredited inspiration for Alien) or Fiend Without a Face (radiation-spawned vampiric brains!), all but one death has occurred off-screen, and none of them seem to have any supernatural cause except for the coincidence of the pins. Yet, the movie has been pretty intense. Much of this is thanks to Richard Boone, who does an excellent job as a man who is caught in bizarre circumstances and feels intensely guilty for killing so many through the simple act of putting pins in a map. And out of his guilt he's replaced one horror (i.e., the ability to kill with the black pins), with another horror (i.e., reanimating the dead with the white pins). The scene in which Kraft awaits the resurrection of his victims while the map appears to grow larger and dominate the room is the highlight of the film and is one of my favorite moments of 1950's cinema.

When Kraft finally runs out of the shack and stumbles through the cemetery, he finds that the graves of the recently deceased are open. He returns to the office, takes a gun out of his desk, and holds it to his head. (At this point I'm eagerly awaiting the movie poster's promise that an "unspeakable horror" will crawl out of "a time-rotted tomb".)

Our hero hesitates when the phone rings. The voice on the other end of the line says that the man in France has died. It's at this moment that we notice that Andy MacKee, the caretaker, is standing in the office. The man is covered in dirt. (Uh... is he the unspeakable horror?) When Kraft finally notices him, Andy opens his mouth and... proceeds to ruin the movie. Andy says that the man in France can't be dead. Why not? Because Andy killed all the others in such a way as to make it look like natural causes(!?!). The massacre was part of the caretaker's plot to drive the chairman insane ever since he had tried to get the caretaker to retire. What about the open graves? They were dug up by Andy (in a single night?).

But the man in France is dead, declares Kraft. The chairman must still have the power to kill with the pins, but that power used Andy to do it. Overwhelmed by that possibility, the superstitious Andy begins to panic, falls against the map, and dies of fright. So, using the caretaker as the instrument of death doesn't ruin the movie too much as long as it was the pins that were the real cause, right? I mean, the dead guy in France proves it. But then...

The police burst into the office. They're surprised to find the caretaker dead and tell the chairman that they had intended to take MacKee into custody. You see, the police have suspected him this whole time. That's why they set up the fake phone call; it was an attempt to expose the caretaker. The man in France is very much alive. Movie ruined. The end.

Where shall I begin with this? I guess I should start with the fact that the Andy-did-it explanation makes no sense. He couldn't have caused the car crash that killed the first two victims. Did he get the idea after he saw Kraft's response to having mistakenly put two black pins in the map? Or did Andy replace the pins immediately after the crash to make Kraft superstitious? We saw the death of the third victim; it looks like he simply had a heart attack. Were there three coincidental deaths and Andy took care of the rest? The other victims are explicitly said to have died of natural causes, but Andy says he used his scarf to do it. Were coroners in the late '50s so inept as to miss the signs of suffocation or strangulation? How did the aging caretaker kill three men in a single night without being caught?

Second of all, I hate a Scooby-Doo ending. To me, nothing is lamer than a fake monster or ghost. This is why I never liked the original Scooby-Doo cartoons. Why would we want the swamp monster to be Old Man Winters instead of an actual monster? For heaven's sake, they've already given us a talking dog, is a real monster that unbelievable? To avoid wasting time, I will actually spoil the ending of a book or a movie for myself if there is any indication that the monster will turn out to be a hoax or the ghost will end up being a hallucination.

After so many good supernatural horror films came out in the '30s and early '40s, Hollywood began to turn away from fantastic horror and instead resorted to mysteries with more earthly explanations. Many of these films follow the old "spooky-house mystery" formula introduced in the '20s and involve fake hauntings that are inevitably the work of a disgruntled butler, a would-be heir, etc. Often the villain's motivation is to drive the protagonist or the protagonist's friend/associate/client insane. The point of these films is not to enjoy the ghostly scares but to figure out the "rational" explanation for what's going on.

By the mid-'50s quite a few horror films were being made, but they tended to avoid the supernatural by instead invoking aliens (e.g., It! The Terror from Beyond Space), radiation-spawned monsters (e.g., Them!), psychically-generated creatures (e.g., Forbidden Planet), and even psychically-generated, radiation-fueled monsters (e.g., Fiend Without a Face). It wasn't until the '60s and '70s that supernatural horrors returned to prominence.

Apparently, the creators of I Bury the Living also felt compelled to eschew unearthly causes and instead gave us an updated version of the spooky-house mystery, complete with a rational explanation in the form of the murderous Andy. Honestly, why would anyone think that the best way to end a movie that has spent nearly its entire running time proving that Robert Kraft can kill by putting a black pin in a map would be to tell us that the caretaker who doesn't want to retire did it? (Ironically, given the logistics of killing all those people, it would make more sense for the deaths to have been caused supernaturally.) Did anyone in the theaters in 1958 actually think, "Thank heavens it was Andy who did it. It would have been just too interesting if they were actually killed by the black pins."

If the last few minutes had given us an unspeakable horror crawling out of a time-rotted tomb, I Bury the Living would have been one of my favorite movies of the 1950s. Heck, if the film had cut off right after Kraft gets the phone call about the fate of the man in France, it still would have been a pretty good movie. But no, they had to ruin it. They had to take a fantastic, unique storyline, great acting, and a buildup on par with the best episodes of The Twilight Zone and then turn around and give it the same plot as dozens of tired spooky-house mysteries. I wanted inexplicable supernatural murders and reanimated corpses, dang it!

At the same time, the majority of the film is great, so I'm going to have to give it a split rating:
A (ignoring the last few minutes)/C (including the horrendous ending)

Another Bachelor Movie Marathon, Part III

During the most recent marathon, I re-watched Bloodlust! (1961), which I've already commented on. I watched three other films, two of which had the benefit of a humorous commentary. One aired on MST3K while the other was a RiffTrax video. RiffTrax is essentially MST3K but without the shadows or the storyline of an unfortunate janitor being shot into space and forced to watch terrible movies. The commenters are Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett, who were trapped in the Satellite of Love's theater during the final three seasons of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959)
Bryce, Carl, and I watched Ed Woods' most (in)famous film, which is sometimes called "The Citizen Kane of Bad Movies", just prior to our bimonthly game of 40K. It was the second time I had watched it and I was looking forward to inflicting it on others.

Concerned that violence-prone humanity is on the brink of discovering a devastating scientific principle that will allow them to destroy the entire Universe, an alien race implements "Plan 9" in an attempt to wipe out the human race. It quickly becomes obvious why Plans 1 through 8 failed since Plan 9 involves reanimating the dead to destroy the living. And by "the dead" I mean three whole corpses consisting of former Swedish wrestler Tor Johnson, horror hostess Vampira, and the genuinely dead Bela Lugosi. Lugosi was resurrected by the miracle of stock footage and shots of a chiropractor who continuously holds a cape in front of his face in an unconvincing attempt to hide the fact that he's not Lugosi.

For the most part our hero is pilot Jeff Trent who had previously witnessed an unidentified flying pie-plate... uh, object, and just so happens to live near the cemetery where the three reanimated ghouls spend the bulk of the film. Although the aliens have figured out interstellar space travel, it doesn't seem to occur to them that the corpses will be singularly unsuccessful if they remain exclusively in a cemetery where there are very few of the living to harm. There are just enough of the living around to notice that something's not right, though, so the police are brought in to investigate. Thrill as the local police race to the cemetery in response to strange goings-on! And then return to the cemetery later in the film. And... well, maybe even a third or fourth time. And then stand around and accidentally bump into obvious prop tombstones.

I've seen plenty of films written by Ed Woods (e.g., The Violent Years (1956)). Woods' writing style was horribly wordy, filled with non sequiturs, and hysterically melodramatic. The perfect example of this is when "The Amazing Criswell" (who is obviously reading from cue cards) opens Plan 9 with an overly long and highly dramatic narration that declares that "future events such as these will affect you in the future". And Bryce and I still like to quote the alien Eros' line berating the humans for their foolishness: "You see! You see! Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!" The icing on the cake is that the actor says it the same way you would expect a petulant ten year old to say it.

Plan 9 is only one of two films I've seen that were also directed by Woods (this and Bride of the Monster (1955)). Although his writing could be slightly mitigated by a relatively competent director, you can imagine the horror that resulted when Woods directed his own movies. Even then, I think that those who declare this to be the worst movie ever made haven't seen enough films from this end of the cinematic bell curve. I would say that movies like Monster A Go-Go (1965) or The Creeping Terror (1964) are much worse simply because they're poorly made and boring.

Since Plan 9 from Outer Space falls into the so-bad-it's-good category, it really deserves a split rating:
F (by nearly any standard of filmmaking)/B+ (for sheer entertainment value)

Time of the Apes (1974/1987)
Apparently, Planet of the Apes (1968) drew a phenomenal number of viewers when it first aired on Japanese television. It was so popular, in fact, that a 26 episode television series was produced in the mid-seventies called Saru No Gundan (Army of Monkeys) in which a scientist and two children end up in an ape-dominated future. Unlike Planet of the Apes, the apes of this series appear to have achieved a modern technological level. Nor are the apes surprised by talking humans. And there are UFOs. I really don't know why there are UFOs, but I've seen enough Japanese sci-fi films made between 1954 and 2004 to know that UFOs show up in a lot of them.

Fast forward to the late 1980s when producer Sandy Frank, who dubbed foreign films such as the Gamera franchise in order to air them on US television, spliced together the 26 episodes of Saru No Gundan into a single film called Time of the Apes. Unfortunately, it turns out that you can't take 26 episodes of a TV show, edit them into a 97 minute movie, and hope for it to make any sense.

When an earthquake strikes and the roof of a cryogenics laboratory begins to collapse, scientist Catherine (I'm not sure she's even given a last name) and two visiting children (Caroline and Johnny) duck into three freezing chambers for protection. When they wake up, they find themselves in a future where apes evolved from men!... well, no, I guess I don't know why apes are running things. And unlike Charlton Heston, we won't even get a Statue of Liberty scene to suggest what happened while our protagonists were frozen.

In no time the three are being hunted by Police Chief Gebar and only avoid capture and execution thanks to the inexplicably well-dressed and well-armed human named Gôdo. Apparently Gôdo is the human that the simian police force are really after, although they seem pretty willing to kill just about any humans.

The humans are eventually captured but, instead of being executed, they're handed over to Cabinet Minister Bippu, who seems a lot less eager to be killing them off than Gebar. Gôdo and Johnny escape and eventually return to break the girls out, although Catherine claims that Bippu is actually trying to protect the humans and is reluctant to leave. Since the previous action only followed the boys' escape and evasion of Gebar's forces, we see absolutely no evidence of Catherine's claims. However, by the end of the film Bippu seems downright civil and helpful, although his transformation from wary jail keeper to friend of humanity seems extremely sudden (presumably it happened during the hours of story that Frank cut out).

Oh, and then there's the UFO. And it uses some sort of video device to show the events that led to Gebar's vendetta against Gôdo and proves to the ape that their dispute is based on a misunderstanding. And thus the movie's primary conflict is defused by a deus ex machina. And the UFO kind of sort of returns the trio to their own time. But we don't know why or even where the spaceship is really from. And the laboratory isn't destroyed after all. But it wasn't a dream, they were somehow frozen to a temperature below absolute zero(?!?) and that allowed them to time travel... or something. I'm not sure how much damage Sandy Frank did to the original explanation for the time traveling, but I've seen plenty of Godzilla films with utterly nonsensical "science", so it may have been inherent to the original series.

I don't know how good Saru No Gundan was, although I believe it was popular in Japan. However, Time of the Apes is pretty awful. The costumes and plot are mediocre, but it's the pacing and plot holes that really hurt the film. I've seen several movies made from two hour pilots or the first few episodes of a failed TV show, but I've never seen anyone try to make one out of more than two dozen episodes. The mysterious UFO, the mutiny against Bippu that lasts all of two minutes, Gôdo's background, the fate of all other humans; all of these are so poorly explained or inadequately covered thanks to Frank's chainsaw that the movie can't help but to suffer from it.
C-

Another Bachelor Movie Marathon, Part II

The past movie marathon was a bit heavy on the '50s movies, although I also saw at least one movie from the '30s, '70s, '80s, and '90s. The '40s and the '60s simply weren't a good time for the genres of movies I'm interested in. Here are a couple non-'50s films.

Island of Lost Souls (1932)
Probably the best film I saw during this marathon, this early '30s horror movie is based on H.G. Wells' The Island of Doctor Moreau. Although the filmmakers' took a few liberties with the plot, the film is surprisingly faithful to the novel compared to other adaptations from the same period such as Dracula (1931) or Frankenstein (1931). It's also surprising how much more violent and disturbing '30s films could be compared to movies from the '40s and '50s. In fact, the film was banned in Britain until 1958.

After his ship goes down, Edward Parker is rescued by a vessel carrying a load of wild animals bound for the private island of Dr. Moreau. In return for defending Moreau's misshapen servant from the ship's short-tempered captain, Parker gets dumped onto Moreau's yacht, which has arrived to pick up the animals. Upon arriving at the island, Parker quickly notices that it's inhabited by odd, even bestial "natives". Although Moreau promises to take him back to civilization, the doctor's yacht becomes "mysteriously" damaged. While other arrangements are supposedly being made, Moreau encourages Lota, the lone woman on the island, to interact with Parker.

It isn't long before Parker discovers that the natives aren't human at all; all of them were originally animals that were surgically transformed by Moreau in his "House of Pain". The lot are kept civil through threats and constant repetition of "The Law". While trying to find a way off the island and away from Moreau's inhuman experiments, Parker starts to have romantic feelings for Lota. What our hero doesn't know is that Lota is referred to as "The Panther Woman" in the film's opening credits and that the doctor has high hopes that his latest experiment will prove to be indistinguishable from a natural-born human in all respects.

Island of Lost Souls is one of the better movies of the decade. It's well-paced, its cinematography is dynamic and striking for a film from the '30s, and it features an excellent cast. Dr. Moreau is the perfect mad scientist in that he's not insane, but is entirely rational and logical in the execution of an insane work. His delivery of lines such as "Do you know what it means to feel like God" is spot on. That particular line was also one of multiple reasons why Britain's censors repeatedly refused to certify the film. Other reasons included (non-graphic) scenes of animal experimentation as well as the doctor's express belief that the true test of the success of his experiments will be whether or not one of his creations can successfully mate with a human being. Like I said, '30s films were often a lot more disturbing than films made 20 years later.

In a hilarious case of false advertising, the movie poster depicts Lota in a seductive pose and with, um... strategically placed hair, and claims that she "lured men on-- only to destroy them body and soul!" In reality, Lota is an extremely sympathetic character who actually rescues the hero at the cost of her own life. Additionally, Bela Lugosi's name is listed with those of the main actors. Much to my surprise, Lugosi doesn't play Dr. Moreau (Moreau is played by Charles Laughton, who probably does a better job than Lugosi would have) but is instead the "Sayer of the Law". He has only a few minutes of screen time and is so covered in makeup and fake hair that he's identifiable only by his voice and eyes. And yes, the camera does the mandatory closeup on Lugosi's eyes, although he doesn't hypnotize anyone with them.
A

Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)
I started reading the novel Something Wicked This Way Comes a few weeks ago and decided to add the movie to the most recent marathon. Although the novel's author, Ray Bradbury, wrote the film's screenplay, the movie isn't quite as good as the book. Ironically, Bradbury died while I was in the middle of the novel and only a few days after I had seen the film.

When Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show arrives on the outskirts of a small town in the middle of the night, the townsfolk find themselves strangely attracted to the carnival. However, young Jim Nightshade, his best friend William Halloway, and Will's relatively elderly father, Charles Halloway, quickly realize that something isn't right. Not only are Mr. Dark and his entourage distinctly menacing, but within the first day of the carnival's arrival, various locals who seem to live in the past go missing and new additions to the carnival's freak show mysteriously appear. One of the oddest occurrences is witnessed by Jim and Will, who watch as carnival member Mr. Cooger takes a late night ride on a backwards-running carousel and becomes younger with each rotation. When the two boys come across Mr. Dark's interrogation of the local storm-sensing lightning rod salesman, Dark and company realize that Jim and Will are a threat to their diabolical operation. It's up to Will's father to save his son and his friend from the carnival which, as revealed by an old journal, rises up every few decades to prey on the town.

Something Wicked This Way Comes isn't a bad movie, but it could have been a lot better. It falls short in odd ways that seem to be artifacts of its transfer from the printed page to the screen. Its plot is relatively close to that of the book (although a number of understandable changes are made to simplify the special effects and to keep the movie's length to about an hour and a half), but a few alterations and missing elements ensure that it isn't quite as good as the novel it's based on.

The first problem is that the movie haphazardly uses some of the more memorable and striking scenes from the book (e.g., the backwards-running carousel, the Dust Witch's use of magic against Jim and Will) in ways that make little sense in the context of the film. In the book the carousel has an important function; it's not only used to allow Mr. Cooger to impersonate a teacher's young nephew, but it's also used to tempt those townsfolk who want to become younger (e.g., the teacher herself) or older (Jim Nightshade). Since the carnival's not in the business of giving you what you actually want, the teacher is reduced to a helpless little girl. In the movie, the teacher does become young again, but it happens while she's looking in a mirror, not while riding the carousel. And except for a brief mention of Jim wanting to become older, the film's carousel doesn't come into play again until the climatic final sequence (which is admittedly pretty cool). Another sequence from the book involves the Dust Witch using her magic to attempt to find where Jim and Will live. Apparently it was believed that the movie should involve a similar scene, but all the Witch's magic does in the movie is give the boys intense nightmares, which does nothing to help the carnival locate or stop the troublemakers. Since the movie's version of these scenes have been bereft of the meaning and purpose they had in the novel, it's not obvious why they're even included and might even be confusing for viewers who aren't familiar with the source material.

The second problem is the fact that the child actors can't portray the depth and complexity of their literary counterparts. For example, the novel's Jim Nightshade is depicted as a child who has seen too much of the world and is becoming more withdrawn with each passing year. He desperately wants to leave childhood and the smothering attentions of his single mother behind and is drawn by the mystery of the carnival and the potential of the carousel to allow him to immediately achieve physical maturity. Thus, Jim's behavior, motivations, and inner-conflict in the novel are perfectly understandable. The film's Jim Nightshade also wants to use the carousel to age himself, but his motivations are unclear. The film character shows none of the world-weariness or unhealthy attraction to mystery, nor does his behavior suggest that Mr. Dark's promise of "Nightshade's and Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show" would tempt him.

While I've criticized the film version of Something Wicked This Way Comes, it's possibly because the movie's errors become much more obvious after reading the novel. On the plus side, the movie's adult actors do a very good job. Since the young actors can't fully carry the story as the novel's characters do, Will's father, Charles Halloway, is given a much bigger role. Fortunately, Jason Robard is excellent in the role as a man who feels much too old to be the father of a 13 year old boy and who now has to save him from the physical embodiment of evil. Additionally, Jonathan Pryce is well cast as Mr. Dark. Rather than attempt the bombast of the novel's character, Pryce aims for quiet menace. Nowadays Pryce is better known for playing Governor Swann in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. It's funny how the same quiet voice and small smile he uses as the foppish governor can be twisted into something so threatening.
B

Another Bachelor Movie Marathon, Part I

Again my wife and kids spent some time with my family in California while I stayed in Idaho and held down the fort. Although I didn't watch nearly as many movies as last time, I still saw a respectable number. Some were good, some were average, and some were dreadful.

The Phantom (1996)
Years ago I was given an LP that had belonged to my mother and her brothers. On one side was a Batman radio adventure in which the villains give Batman a phobia of bats while under hypnosis. It's ironic that, years later, the most popular cinematic incarnation of Batman would be afraid of bats and would choose his symbol based on that fear. On the other side of the record was a Phantom adventure. The Phantom was introduced in 1936 as a purple tights-wearing hero who lives in the jungles of the fictional African nation of Bangalla. There he uses his strength, brains, and the myth of his being an immortal "Ghost Who Walks" to fight evil.

When hired goons invade the jungles of Bengalla and sack an ancient burial place in search of one of the fabled Skulls of Touganda, the Phantom appears to rescue the young boy the villains kidnapped as their unwitting guide. The goons get away with the skull and take it to New York, where we find that wealthy and corrupt utilities owner Xander Drax is attempting to collect all three skulls. Legend has it that whoever can bring the three skulls together can command unimaginable power. In the meantime, Dianna Palmer, the niece of the newspaper editor who is trying to bring Drax down, is kidnapped by Drax's henchmen (and henchwomen in the form of a group of all-female air pirates). The Phantom rescues Palmer, who doesn't recognize him as being her ex-boyfriend. The movie is initially silent on how the Phantom knows Palmer in the first place, since it's implied that he was born and raised in Bengalla. We're eventually clued in that the title of "Phantom" is passed from father to son. The current Phantom had been studying in America (where he met Palmer) at the time his father was killed by Drax's right hand man and he had to take on "the family business". Anyway, Drax ends up with all three skulls and the Singh Brotherhood, which is mentioned throughout the movie, finally makes an appearance that is much too brief to merit all the attention it gets.

The Phantom isn't a bad movie, but it doesn't live up to its potential. Billy Zane's Phantom seems too personable and good-humored to ever maintain a reputation as "The Ghost Who Walks" and could have benefited from the haunted past and the aura of mystery that Michael Keaton brought to Batman in 1989. And Drax is a bit too comical to be a truly menacing villain. The best thing about the movie is that it's set in the 1930s and preserves the comic's pulp adventure feel, which mitigates the inherent silliness.
B-

The Blob (1958)
I was recently made fun of for not having seen The Blob while claiming to be a fan of sci-fi in general and of '50s sci-fi in particular. I couldn't allow that to stand of course, so I quickly added the movie to my Netflix queue.

When a meteor lands near the home of an old recluse, the man becomes the unfortunate first victim of the creature that emerges from it. "Teenagers" Steve Andrews and his girlfriend Jane Martin take the hysterical man to the local doctor after he runs into the road with a pink mass covering his hand. Steve and Jane leave the man in the doctor's care, only to return and find the creature in the act of consuming the doctor. Over the next few hours, the creature slinks around town, stealthily consuming the townsfolk while Steve and Jane find it nearly impossible to convince the authorities of the danger. With the help of the local youth, they finally manage to rouse the town and find themselves trying to convince hundreds of tired and angry citizens of the threat posed by a steadily growing pink slimeball. Fortunately (or unfortunately) the teens don't have to wait too long before the creature publicly reveals itself in fantastic fashion.

The Blob is a decent little movie. Despite the ridiculous opening theme and absurd premise, the movie is played pretty straight. It's still hard to accept Steve McQueen and Aneta Corsaut as teenagers, though (they were 28 and 24 years old, respectively). The Blob itself doesn't get quite enough screen time, although when it does it's surprisingly scary for a large pink ball of goo. The idea that it envelops its victims and dissolves them alive is pretty horrific for a movie from this era.
B

Kronos (1957)
Although it's not considered to be a classic movie, Kronos is known for its unique monster. Imagine two enormous black blocks connected by a metallic cylinder. The bottom block stands on four pillar-like legs and the upper block is topped by a dome and two antennae. When it walks, Kronos stamps its pillars up and down while the center of the block emits a cartoon beam. This looks as goofy as it sounds.

As a flying saucer approaches Earth, Dr. Gaskill and Dr. Culver look on, assuming that the object is some sort of meteor. A ball of energy leaves the UFO and eventually inhabits Dr. Eliot, the director of the institution tracking the object. Once the UFO lands on Earth and transforms into the abstract art menace, the possessed director provides it with targets from which it can absorb energy while also trying to hide the purpose of the machine from his underlings. When an electrical shock allows Dr. Eliot to briefly free himself from the alien mind control, the doctor reveals that Kronos is an accumulator that has been sent by a hostile and energy-hungry world to absorb all of the Earth's power for its own use. As the machine absorbs energy it becomes ever larger and more threatening until, finally, the military decides to drop an H-bomb on it. All those power plants weren't even a light snack compared to a thermonuclear main course.

While the monster is unusual, the movie surrounding it is barely average. I've never been a fan of Jeff Morrow, who's better as a villain or a secondary character than he is in a lead role. His Dr. Gaskill is decidedly unmemorable and uncharismatic. In fact, although cast as an unwitting villain, John Emery's Dr. Eliot seems to be the real star of the film. And the scientists' plan to defeat the monster is so full of nonsensical techno-jargon that I actually had to watch the explanation twice to make sure I hadn't missed something. Nope, I saw and heard the whole thing; not one whit of it made any sense. The climactic destruction of the machine lacks any real impact or excitement, in part because it's executed by a single pilot that we never actually meet while the supposed heroes listen to his radio transmissions. Kronos would have been better off emulating the monster-killing scenes from movies like Gojira/Godzilla: King of the Monsters (1954/1956) or The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953).
C+

Random Dice?

Although it looks like I've significantly decreased my blogging, the truth is that I do blog posts relatively often. Unfortunately, they're usually Warhammer 40,000 related and thus have a limited appeal. Ironically, although this blog gets more hits, it doesn't get many actual visitors. The hits are because a lot of my monster images show up on a Google image search. The Atomic Spud's Warhammer 40K Blog has a lot fewer hits, but more visitors who are actually there to read the content.

Anyway, the following post originally appeared on my Warhammer 40,000 blog and may be amusing to those who aren't usually interested in the Grim Dark Future. In a way, it ties into my previous post, "How To Care for Introverts", since the activity it describes (i.e., testing dice to see if they're truly random) seems like one a typical introvert might take part in.

For the uninitiated, here's a quick explanation of some of the vocabulary. A save is a dice roll that might save a model (usually some sort of soldier) from being killed and taken off the table. The save can be due to his armor, his position in cover, or some other special rule. When I say that a save is a "3+", for example, that means that the model is saved by a dice roll of 3 or higher. The term "d6" refers to a standard die; i.e., one with six sides. Warhammer 40K is played solely with d6s, which determine whether a model hits its target, whether it's wounded by a weapon, whether it passes a save, etc. Many roll playing games (RPGs) use d6s as well as other types, such as twenty sided dice (d20s). "Warp-tainted" is a 40K term that means that something has been corrupted by the chaotic energy of the Warp, which is essentially a psychically charged version of the "hyperspace" that shows up in so many sci-fi stories. "GW" is "Games Workshop", the company that produces 40K.

Uncovering Warp-Tainted Dice
I've mentioned before that I've had some pretty horrible luck with my dice. In the past few months I've failed four out of about seven 3+ cover saves, failed five out of six 3+ armor saves immediately after failing five out of six 3+ cover saves, rolled absurd numbers of ones and twos during two out of three games, and, in last week's game, rolled multiple snake eyes, failed to wound three out of five Orks after hitting them with a strength 10 Demolisher Cannon, and failed three out of five artificer armor [i.e., 2+] saves. As a Space Marine player, I spend a lot of points for awesome armor saves and a high ballistic skill, all of which can be completely neutralized by an excessive number of ones and twos. Space Marine armies simply aren't large enough to tolerate that kind of rolling.

Being paranoid doesn't mean
that they aren't out to get you

At first I was willing to believe that I simply perceived the rolls as being skewed due to the human tendency to selectively remember extraordinary events. After a while, I started testing my dice, repeatedly rolling each die in my box of 36 dusty blue and copper Chessex dice (yes, I chose the dice to match my army). I averaged the results for each die respectively and found that they usually produced a result close to the expected 3.5. This seemed to confirm that I was selectively remembering the bad rolls.

After last week's game, I came home convinced that something was awry with many of my dice. After a Google search, I came across several blogs and websites claiming that mass-produced dice such as those made by GW or Chessex can be irregular enough to produce skewed results. This is particularly true of the d20s that various RPGs use. Many of these unbalanced dice will tend to produce huge numbers of opposites; a die that produces too many ones or twos can often produce too many fives and sixes as well. I soon realized that my initial tests were worthless; an unbalanced die that favors mostly ones and sixes will tend to have an average roll of 3.5. As a Space Marine player who usually needs only 3+ and 4+ to do what I want, I don't want dice that will produce an unusual number of fives and sixes (which are overkill) but also give me a ton of ones and twos (which represent failed armor saves and missed shots). Instead of making the expected 66.7% of my armor saves or to hit rolls, extremely skewed dice could give me an armor save and to hit rate of nearly 50%.

I eventually came across this D&D blog, which described using a Pearson's chi-square test to validate whether or not a d6 or a d20 is fair. This test has the advantage of detecting when individual numbers come up too often or not often enough rather than depending on averaging results. The equation for a d6 is:

Σ[(O-E)^2/E] > 11.070

Where "O" is observed frequency and "E" is expected frequency. The value of 11.070 is the chi-square value for a system with five degrees of freedom; i.e., the number of possible results (six for a d6) minus 1. The equation essentially says that if the result of the equation is greater than the chi-square value, then the claim that the die is fair is probably false.

To use this equation you roll a die a certain number of times and record how many times each side shows up. For each of the six possible die results, you subtract the expected frequency that the side should appear from the observed number of times that the side actually showed up. You divide that value by the expected frequency and then add up the resulting numbers from each of the six possible results. If the sum is greater than 11.070, it is statistically probable that the die is not fair. Although 30 rolls (with an expected frequency of 5 hits for each side) is considered to be a minimum, the same D&D blog noted that a 30 roll test is likely to miss slightly unbalanced dice. A better test would use more than 100 rolls per die.

I decided to apply this test to my own dice and started by placing them in a grid and assigning each die a letter and number designation from A1 to F6. I'm crazy, but not crazy enough to roll all 36 of my dice over 100 times, so I started with just 30 rolls per die. I put the data into a spreadsheet that executed the equation and also calculated how often the die gave a result of 2+ (e.g., a Terminator armor save, the usual value needed to kill infantry with anti-tank weapons), of 3+ (e.g., a power armor save, the value needed for a Marine to hit), and of 4+ (e.g., a Scout armor save, the value to wound with most sniper weapons). I used the conditional formatting feature to automatically color code results that I thought were suspicious. After crunching the numbers, I found that none of my dice failed after only 30 rolls, but that several were close. The blog's warning about a 30 roll test being insufficient became apparent when one die failed to roll a single 1 but was still able to pass the test (although just barely).

Those dice that were close to failing or that I found suspicious (18 out of the 36) were given an additional 60 rolls (90 total rolls with an expected frequency of 15 hits per side). The additional results showed that a few of the 18 dice merely had a bad series of rolls earlier and that they were relatively well balanced. However, four dice outright failed the chi-square test. The worst offender would roll a one more than a quarter of the time (27.78%) and would make a 3+ armor save only 53.33% of the time versus the expected 66.67%. Another die would only roll a 4+ 33.33% of the time rather than the expected 50%. Of the four failures, only one rolled unusually high.

I would call this one "The Widowmaker" if Astartes had widows

Some would call this one "lucky". I retired it, too.

After more than 2,000 individual dice rolls, I decided to "retire" the four failed dice as well as five others that gave results greater than 6 (a little more than half of the chi-square value). And yes, I also removed the high rolling die, which had the second highest degree of bias. In short, I removed 1/4 of all my dice from my set based on this test. Fortunately I play Space Marines, so I don't really need all 36 dice anyway. Oddly enough, I can't bring myself to throw out the biased dice. They're segregated in their own little Ziploc bag labeled with dire warnings.

I would recommend the above test for any player who thinks his dice are giving him a raw deal. I was somewhat relieved to find that, although a lot of my bad luck may be a matter of perception, a significant amount of it may be due to biased dice. And if your dice don't turn out to be biased, then at least you have mathematical proof that it's all in your head.

I guess the question is, what can a tabletop gamer do about the problem? There are a variety of dice companies that promise balanced dice, but they charge as much for five dice as Chessex does for 36. Plus, Chessex sells a greater variety of colors and styles that are great for those players who want to match their dice to their army. I've simply decided to order a second box of Chessex dice (blue and white to match Ultramarine veterans) with the intention of performing another set of chi-square tests to weed out the biased ones. The test takes me about as long to finish as two long games of 40K. If that saves me from any more dice-sabotaged games, then it was worth it.

"How To Care for Introverts"

I found a copy of this poster on Facebook last month:

I was amazed at how accurately this list describes myself and, to a lesser extent, several of my friends. Supposedly, around 75% of Americans are extroverts while those of us who are introverts are in the minority. Unfortunately, that means that a lot of people don't understand our personalities or realize that what's normal and enjoyable for them can be a veritable nightmare for us.

Numbers 1 and 6 have required a lot of patience on the part of my wife. Although I love my family more than anything, my wife and kids have learned that daddy's sanity is often dependent on him having his "daddy time"; i.e., a period of time in which I can sit in a quiet room listening to music through my ubiquitous noise-blocking earbuds. (I've since come to realize that the reason I constantly listen to music is so that I can control the sound around me. Without that control, random noise becomes horribly distracting.) My wife learned about number 6 long ago when she realized that I have extreme difficulty with spontaneity or sudden changes to my routine or my plans.

Numbers 11 and 12 reflect on an introvert's aversion to large social gatherings. For example, I don't know how many people tried to get me to 'get out and have some fun' at a dance or some other activity when I was young. I remember a young woman who was frequently guilty of this and who was able to drag me to the occasional dance. The only thing that made those activities tolerable was the fact that I liked her. That young woman, who became Bride of Atomic Spud just over 10 years ago, eventually learned number 12: "don't try to remake [introverts] into extroverts". The reason why we don't enjoy social events with large groups of people isn't because we haven't been exposed to them, it's because we simply don't like them. It's in our personality to dislike large social events, just as it is in the personality of many people to enjoy them.

Wikipedia seems to have a pretty good definition of introversion and extroversion that tends to agree with the poster:

Extraverts tend to enjoy human interactions and to be enthusiastic, talkative, assertive, and gregarious. They take pleasure in activities that involve large social gatherings, such as parties, community activities, public demonstrations, and business or political groups. Politics, teaching, sales, managing and brokering are fields that favor extroversion. An extroverted person is likely to enjoy time spent with people and find less reward in time spent alone. They tend to be energized when around other people, and they are more prone to boredom when they are by themselves.

On the other side are introverts:

[Introverts] often take pleasure in solitary activities such as reading, writing, using computers, hiking and fishing. The archetypal artist, writer, sculptor, engineer, composer, and inventor are all highly introverted. An introvert is likely to enjoy time spent alone and find less reward in time spent with large groups of people, though he or she may enjoy interactions with close friends. [...] They prefer to concentrate on a single activity at a time and like to observe situations before they participate, especially observed in developing children and adolescents. They are more analytical before speaking. Introverts are easily overwhelmed by too much stimulation from social gatherings and engagement, introversion having even been defined by some in terms of a preference for a quiet, more minimally stimulating environment.

Although I've never been comfortable in social gatherings, it seems to have become worse since college. To say that I'm "easily overwhelmed by too much stimulation from social gatherings and engagement" is an understatement. A couple years ago I found myself at a neighborhood Christmas party being held by some friends. I was with my wife and I knew nearly everybody in the house. Although I initially enjoyed talking with our friends, after about an hour I became quiet. Every voice and noise in the house seemed to become amplified and I felt like the people in the house were pressing in on me. Fortunately my wife noticed my discomfort and we left shortly afterward.

I had an even worse reaction earlier this year when we took our kids to an Easter egg hunt sponsored by the local fire department. The various hunts were divided into age groups and my wife assigned me to supervise our four year old while she went with Son of Atomic Spud. Due to poor weather, the event was held in a local school, so I found myself crammed into a room with literally hundreds of people and their children. Although I stayed in the most open parts of the room that I could find, by the time the hunt was over and we had streamed out of the building, my teeth were chattering and I was shaking. I admit that such an extreme reaction may be less introversion and more agoraphobia.

Yeah, it's kind of like this sometimes

At the same time, most introverts don't avoid social interaction altogether. Every couple weeks I play Warhammer 40,000 with several friends. Once a month three of us even watch an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 before the game. The difference between these activities and the Christmas party a few years back is that, first, there are usually only four or five of us in the room during these games. Once or twice we've had up to six people, which I think is my limit. Second, all of us have relatively similar personalities. Given that engineers are considered "archetypal" introverts, it's not surprising that our five core players (i.e., the "40K Cabal") are all engineers or scientists.

I have read of parents that are concerned about their right-brained (i.e., typically introverted) child's apparent difficulty with social interaction who are amazed at how animated and open he or she becomes when interacting with other introverted children. Personally, I have never had more than two or three good friends at any given time. In fact, as suggested by number 10, I think I could define various periods of my life based on who that one best friend was at the time. While I'm silent and closed around strangers (or even when I'm surrounded by too many people that I would call friends), the few close friends I've had can testify that I have plenty to say.