Dracula, Foot Zombies and the King of Essex

Every man has that one mate. The one with ideas.

Not good ideas.  Not sensible ideas. Ideas. The sort that arrive uninvited and always with the confidence of a man who won't be paying for any of the consequences.

Mine is Dodgy Roger.

Recently, he offered a piece of career guidance.

"You should pitch Terry Stone."

Now that was interesting.

Terry Stone is no stranger to British crime flicks. As an actor slash producer, he's become closely associated with the Rise of the Footsoldier franchise, playing Tony Tucker and turning one of the UK's most notorious true crime cases into a long-running series of films. 

Dodgy Roger's suggestion was perfectly reasonable.

What followed was not.

I should explain that film pitches are a little bit like dreams. They seem brilliant at two in the morning but require urgent medical attention by lunchtime. 

Nevertheless, inspired by Dodgy Roger's advice, I came up with three proposals for Terry Stone. 

The first was my personal fav.

Dracula A.D. Essex

The title alone should tell you everything. 

For younger readers, there was once a gloriously peculiar 1972 Hammer film which transplanted Count Dracula from Gothic Europe into modern-day London. My pitch shamelessly tipped its Homburg in that direction. Only instead of swinging London, we get Essex. And instead of Dracula emerging into a world of hippies and flares, this undocumented immigrant arrives in Brexit Britain and immediately encounters something even more terrifying. The English property market.

The story begins when Dracula is sold a lemon by dodgy solicitor Johnny Harker. Expecting a magnificent Gothic pile, Dracula discovers he's purchased a mock-Tudor bungalow in Billericay. No battlements. Not even a view of sea.  Just a conservatory, some questionable damp proofing and neighbours who take wheelie-bin placement very seriously indeed.  

Dracula wants answers. And possibly revenge. But the only man capable of stopping the Prince of Darkness is plumber and self-taught vampire killer "Van the Man" Helsing. In my imagination, he's played by Ray Winstone. Because if British cinema has taught us anything, it's that eventually somebody phones Ray Winstone. 

Craig Fairbrass was my first and only choice for Dracula. Not because he resembles Dracula. He just looks capable of having a ruck with a vampire and winning. 

The joke, of course, is that the entire thing is really about conveyancing.... 

Which is already Britain's most effective horror genre.

Rise of the Foot Zombies

My second proposal answered a question nobody had ever asked. What if "the Firm" came back? Not metaphorically. Literally. The title was Rise of the Foot Zombies. Tony Tucker. Pat Tate. Craig Rolfe. Back from the dead. 

The explanation is simple. An irresponsible scientist. Every horror film eventually requires one. A man who looked at the laws of nature and thought, "Bish-bash-bosh, let's have a go!"

The result is a trio of reanimated Essex gangsters, now effectively indestructible and extremely annoyed. 

Their mission? 

Revenge.

Against everybody!

The beauty of the concept is its economy. You already have crime. Horror. And Essex. The audience practically markets itself. Picture the scene. Fog rolling across an industrial estate. Blue lights flashing. A nation brought to its knees by undead villains in Fila and Stone Island. 

Hollywood spends hundreds of millions creating cinematic universes. I was attempting to destroy one for the price of a decent catering budget.

The King of Essex

The third pitch was perhaps the most ambitious...

...Or the most concerning.

Possibly both.

The premise was simple. Billy Murray plays Billy Murray. Or rather a gloriously exaggerated version of Billy Murray. Actor. Hard man. Screen villain. A cultural institution. A man who who has spent so many years portraying dangerous individuals that he has become a genre of British entertainment all by himself.

In my tale, he's the undisputed King of Essex. Not elected. Not appointed. Simply accepted. Like gravity. Or traffic. The kingdom is threatened when old faces emerge from the shadows looking for revenge. Some want moolah. Others want payback. Some are merely annoyed.

At the same time, our hero is attempting to secure a BAFTA lifetime achievement award for services to on-screen villainy. One moment he's confronting mugs with a sawn-off, the next he's smiling for the paparazzi with a bird on each arm. 

Fighting. Loving. Acting. There's no one like the King of Essex. 

Would any of these work?

Probably not. 

Then again, cinematic history is littered with ideas that sounded ridiculous when first proposed. A shark terrorising a seaside town. A time-travelling DeLorean. A giant ape climbing a skyscraper. Compared with those, a furious Dracula in Billericay isn't entirely implausible. 

Besides, there is a proud British tradition of taking familiar characters and dropping them into places they have absolutely no business being. 

That's what made Dracula A.D. 1972 memorable. He survived Victorian England. He survived the 20th Century. The real challenge is surviving a property dispute in Essex.

Whether Terry Stone ever responds to these pitches remains uncertain. Whether he laughs is another matter.

But if one day a film appears featuring Craig Fairbrass as Dracula arguing about conveyancing whilst Ray Winstone hunts him down, I'll know exactly where it all started.

                                        With Dodgy Roger.