You Might Be a Zombie . . . (24 page)

AH,
publishing a book. It’s like getting confirmation that your time here on earth mattered, but putting your thoughts down on paper doesn’t come without risks. There’s always the chance that Hollywood will turn your book into a movie, and—spoiler alert—
the studio has a few ideas about the ending.
This is showbiz slang for, “We’re going to make your story say exactly the opposite of what you’d intended.”

5.
FIGHT CLUB
, ALLEGEDLY BASED ON THE BOOK BY CHUCK PALAHNIUK

In rebel ion against the shal owness of modern life and IKEA, the narrator creates an imaginary split personality named Tyler Durden, who urges men to beat the crap out of each other and commit random acts of anarchy. As the story reaches a climax, the narrator realizes he needs to rid himself of Tyler and shoots himself in the head, because that’s where your imagination lives.

The book ending

The book makes the dubious claim that being shot in the head puts you in the hospital, and that’s where we find the narrator. The narrator describes the hospital in beatific language, cal ing the attendants “angels.” But alas, one of the “angels” is a Fight Club member, who ends the book saying, “We look forward to getting you back.” Thus we learn that the narrator has created a monster in the Fight Club anarchist group that is out of his control.

Moral of the book

Modern life is emasculating and can provoke a violent backlash by those feeling disconnected from humanity.
This is a bad thing.

The Hollywood ending

After shooting himself in the head, the narrator natural y has sustained only a minor flesh wound. The film ends with him holding hands with his love interest while watching a massive spectacle take place in the background, which we all recognize as Hollywood shorthand for “everything is going to turn out all right.” For those who don’t get it, Edward Norton helpful y states, “Everything’s going to be fine.”

And so ends an uplifting tale of a guy who got out of a rut with a series of violent escapades learned his lesson about taking it too far, and is going to continue with life the better for his experience. Someday he will look back and tell his grandkids this funny story about how he and grandma met, and then pit them against each other in combat.

Moral of the movie

Same as the book but without the consequences. It’s not totally surprising, then, that teens across the world started creating
their own fight clubs
, apparently mistaking the movie for an instructional video on how to achieve six-pack abs.

4.
THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK
, ALLEGEDLY BASED ON THE BOOK BY ALEXANDRE DUMAS

The man in the title is Philippe, identical twin of King Louis XIV of France. As often happens with twins, Philippe is good and Louis is evil. Philippe has been imprisoned for most of his life due to his dangerous potential claim to the throne. A group of musketeers finds him and hatches a plan to swap him out by making a dramatic charge down a prison hal way into a point-blank hail of gunfire. At this point in a story about the end of an era of heroes, as the aged, formal y retired musketeers are making a brave suicide charge for a just cause, you would expect the heroes to die heroical y . . .

The book ending

. . . which is basical y what happens in the novel you read in school, though it probably took longer than you expected. When the musketeers are eventual y defeated, Louis puts Philippe away for life and goes down in history as a great king. Thus we learn a sad truth about the human condition: History is written by the winners and the winners are often dickbags.

Moral of the book

The age of chivalry is passing because men of honor are at a natural disadvantage in our modern, amoral world.

The Hollywood ending

As the smoke clears, the firing squad looks into the haze and sees the musketeers completely untouched, striding forward. Moved to tears, the guards put aside their guns and join the musketeers in putting Louis away and proclaiming Philippe king.

The epilogue proclaims that the good Philippe replaced the evil Louis XIV and was the best king of France ever, thus raising a big cheerful middle finger to everything we know about French history.

Moral of the movie

In a world where
the age of chivalry is passing,
three men must risk everything
, which is cool because the good guys always win, especial y when they’re fighting for a cause as handsome as Leonardo DiCaprio. Bonus moral: Hollywood proves that history can be
rewritten
by dickbags too.

3.
FRANKENSTEIN
(1931), ALLEGEDLY BASED ON THE BOOK BY MARY SHELLEY

Dr. Frankenstein decides to fool around in God’s domain by creating life from inanimate matter. When this results in a monster, he realizes he’s made a mistake and should probably kil it. Disagreeing, the monster fights back and eventual y threatens to murder Frankenstein’s new wife.

The book ending

Mary Shel ey’s beast is a monster of his word and kil s Frankenstein’s wife. Frankenstein’s father then dies of grief. Somewhere along the line, his brother, best friend, and trusted family servant also die. Frankenstein ends up chasing the monster to the North Pole, fueled by grief and revenge, and dies of il ness just as the monster bursts into his room, makes a speech about how woeful his lot is, and runs off to commit suicide. Everybody learns a lesson about playing God, or they would have if they weren’t all dead.

Moral of the book

When man decides to play God, he provokes His wrath.

The Hollywood ending

Frankenstein enlists the help of a good old angry mob to finish off the monster before he can hurt his wife. The film ends with Frankenstein’s dad raising a toast to the happy couple and a future grandchild. Sure, Frankenstein messed up with the brain part of his monster, but it’s pretty unfair to say it’s inherently wrong to reanimate a living sentient being from spare body parts or anything like that. There’s no reason he couldn’t try again, as long as he’s got the old monster-kil ing squad handy.

Moral of the movie

You can play God, just clean up after yourself.

2.
THE RUNNING MAN
, ALLEGEDLY BASED ON THE BOOK BY STEPHEN KING

Ben Richards is a contestant in a deadly reality show in which he gets money if he can outrun people trying to hunt him, and gets killed if he can’t.

The book ending

At the end of Stephen King’s book, Richards has almost succeeded in running out the clock, when he gets a cal from Kil ian, the man behind the
Running
Man
show. It’s a job offer to be the show’s lead hunter. The bad news? Richards’s wife and daughter were murdered shortly after he started running.

Overcome by grief and unhappy at himself for participating in this exploitative system, Kil ian crashes into the headquarters of the game company, blowing it up and kil ing himself.

Moral of the book

A prescient message about the ghoulish nature of reality TV and more general y about human nature’s love of spectator sports.

The Hollywood ending

Arnold Schwarzenegger straps Kil ian to a rocket sled and catapults him through a giant neon sign. He makes a bad pun, gets the girl, and walks away into the futuristic sunset as the audience cheers. Nothing is said about whether the company continues to make reality shows where people are kil ed, but why wouldn’t they? That shit was
amazing
!

Moral of the movie

Reality shows are like regular game shows multiplied by awesome.

1.
BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA
, ALLEGEDLY BASED ON THE BOOK BY BRAM STOKER

The vampire Dracula comes to London, where he kil s people and turns the innocent Lucy Westenra into a vampire. A ragtag team including Lucy’s best friend Mina and Dr. Van Helsing are forced to kil the now vampirized Lucy and then turn their attention toward finishing off Dracula . . .

The book ending

. . . which they do, through teamwork and courage.

Moral of the book

The ancient and unknown things of this world are scary, dark, and powerful. Once unleashed, you will have to do horrific things to make anything right again, such as murdering your own best friend.

The Hollywood ending

After the count trades mortal blows with one of the vampire hunters, Mina
saves him
. It turns out she’s the reincarnation of his dead wife and needs to take him to the castle chapel to kiss him, so she can redeem his soul and all ow him to ascend to heaven in a beautiful scene. While she’s doing that, another one of her friends dies from Dracula wounds, but he wasn’t in love with anybody so it’s not important. The important thing is that the guy who kil ed him and turned her best friend into a monster gets to be with his dead wife in heaven.

Moral of the movie

Love never dies and also doesn’t sweat the small stuff like
killing innocent people
. Good thing Hollywood got that one out of its system.

Oh, right.

DOCTORS
have a long, storied background of not knowing what the hel they’re doing. History is filled with stories of medical ineptitude, and in all likeliness today’s medical practices will be similarly snorted at a hundred years down the road. So if you’re looking to rationalize not getting that lump on your neck checked out, you’re in the right place.

10. CHILDREN’S SOOTHING SYRUPS

In the nineteenth century, people were simply too busy churning butter and waxing their mustaches to be bothered with disobedient children. To remedy this, a series of “soothing syrups,” lozenges, and powders were created, all of which were careful y formulated to ensure they were safe for use by those most vulnerable members of the family. Oh, wait, no. Actual y, they pumped each bottle ful of as many narcotics as it could hold.

For instance, each ounce of Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup contained sixty-five mil igrams of pure morphine.

Based on our experiences experimenting with pure morphine, that seems like a lot. Drug manufacturers final y slowed their rol a bit in 1910, when the
New York Times
decided the whole narcotic babysitter concept was probably bad and ran an article pointing out that these syrups contained, “morphine sulphate, chloroform, morphine hydrochloride, codeine, heroin, powdered opium, cannabis indica,” and sometimes several of them in combination.

You can’t say the syrups weren’t effective, as long as you didn’t mind your toddler being strung out on the midnight oil. Or dead. The terrible twos weren’t just a cutesy euphemism back then. Kids were not only at their brattiest but also often died, in many cases after their parents tried to cure the aforementioned brattiness with narcotic concoctions in accordance with the doctor’s orders.