Pride and Prejudice and Zombies seems to have taken the world by storm, much like zombies themselves. These days I keep a trusty pike by my bed at all times, waiting for the inevitable gurgling moan from a differently alive gentleman or lady scratching at my front door to be let in. I quickly despatch them, my proficiency in the weapon greatly enhanced after the Siege of Magdalene back in ought-seven. A costly victory; many punts were sacrificed, resting now amongst the weeds, discarded bicycles and tourist fingers at the bottom of the Cam.
I wonder now whether people truly understand the trigger for the conflict. It took just one infected person, one poor soul whose mind was emptied by X Factor Xtra on ITV4, who passed on the infection through drool and poorly timed whooping, and suddenly the streets were full of wailing, marauding half-humans leaving a trail of bodily fluids and mayhem behind them. Or was that just Saturday night up the Regal? I forget now.
With what passes for civilisation now restored, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies appears. I feel eminently qualified to condemn it out of hand since I haven’t read it and have absolutely no intention of doing so. Apparently it really is just Pride and Prejudice with additional zombie-related scenes. Like a director’s cut of the book using the wrong offcuts. But it’s successful, and that’s all that matters for publishers – so expect a brown, noxious stream of similarly cut-and-shut novels to be hosed by the tankerload onto bookshelves in time for Christmas (next week then?). Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters is one; I wonder whether they’ll subvert the subgenre and create Frankenstein’s Kitten, or Dracula and his Amazing Friends. I doubt it.
I started idly thinking of other inevitable, possible and unlikely combos, and the execrable films that would surely result. Here, then, are Avaragado’s top ten. By top ten, I mean the only ten I’ve thought of so far.
10. You’ve Got Fail
Sequel to 1998’s You’ve Got Mail. Thriller in which our two lovers attempt to communicate through a blizzard of viruses and spam. Sponsored by Microsoft.
9. Fahrenheit 404
A worldwide DDOS brings down all web servers. There is panic and looting and much product placement. Will Smith vehicle. He saves the day by turning the Internet off and on again.
8. The Postman Always Pings Twice
“The year’s best comedy about port knocking” — Empire.
7. The Tweeting of the Shrew
Teen romcom set in Silicon Valley with a highly original plot in which a dowdy, bespectacled swot removes said specs to transform into the prom queen. Along the way there are various High Jinks with a knowing voice-over, typed on-screen as spoken in 140-character chunks. Promoted with a URL shortening service, shrew.ly, that’s turned off immediately after the film’s release in a blatant do-not-get-it by the movie business.
6. Carry On Up The Broadband
A farcical knockabout starring digitally recreated avatars of Kenneth Williams, Sid James, Charles Hawtrey, Hattie Jacques, Joan Sim, Bernard Bresslaw, Barbara Windsor et al in a series of MMORPGs. Watch astounded as Hawtrey leads a platoon of camp elves on an assault against Windsor’s exploding boob-monsters.
5. Lolcat on a Hot Tin Roof
A Disney 3D animated musical involving many, many cheeseburgers.
4. From Nigeria With Love
One man (George Clooney) takes on the might of the Nigerian spam empire. Lots of long shots of African scenery with no relevance to the story whatsoever. Clooney eventually beats the spammers by implausibly playing them at their own game, all to the incessant cacophony compulsory in any movie scene containing a computer.
3. True Git
Two groups of long-separated cowboys and their herds come together using a three-way merge algorithm.
2. Bourne for Dummies
An ill-advised collaboration between the not-Bond Bond franchise and the publishers of the * For Dummies books. Bourne (Matt Damon) agrees to write Identity Concealment for Dummies but rival publishers get wind and try to kill him for no adequately explained reason. Fourteen explosive set pieces later, it’s revealed to be a complete misunderstanding: the rival publishers thought he was Stephen Bourne, writer of the UNIX Bourne shell. They were all superfans of the C shell.
1. The Facebook of Dorian Gray
In which the 20,000 tagged photos of the titular Gray – taken at various frat parties by himself at arm’s length hugging anyone with teeth – are all commented on by progressively older and older pervs. In the dramatic climax he detags himself only to find that his likeness is replaced in every photo by a zombie, pirate, farm implement, or carefully targeted advert.
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