Literary mashups take to the big screen

First there was Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, a novel by Seth Grahame-Smith. It is a mashup combining Jane Austen’s classic 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice with elements of modern zombie fiction. Austen is credited as co-author.

The reactions of critics to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies could be characterized as either praise or astonishment. To some it was a delightful gimmick. Others found that, beneath the surface, the book actually constituted an interesting way of looking at Austen’s novel. Zombies answer certain puzzling questions: Why were those troops stationed near Hertfordshire?

But critics also noted that this parody proves that Austen’s novel has remained so powerful over time that even the undead can’t spoil it. Fans should read this book as tongue-in-cheek and prepare to laugh with it. If you don’t like zombies or consider yourself a Jane Austen snob, if you admire only the most intricate writing and consider this sort of work irreverent, then you’ll be appalled more than amused. But hey, even a good adverse reaction can be entertaining. Why do you think critics enjoy their jobs so much?

Anyway, reports now indicate that Hollywood has been sniffing around—like the walking dead after brains—to turn the satirical book into a movie. Can you imagine? Colin Firth as shotgun-toting, zombie-blasting Darcy? Keira Knightley’s Elizabeth with a little post-mortem decomp? Oh, the possibilities…

The literary mashup-to-movies trend continues to go strong with Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Reports indicate that Lincoln has bewitched Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov to the producer’s chair. Seth Grahame-Smith will pen the screenplay. The film isn’t currently set up anywhere, but with Burton and Bekmambetov championing its Civil War thrills, that will probably be old news by the time you read it.

Here’s a quick book report: When Abraham Lincoln was nine years old, his mother died from an ailment called the “milk sickness.” Only later did he learn that his mother’s deadly affliction was actually the work of a local vampire, seeking to collect a debt owed by Lincoln’s father. When Abe learned the truth, he vowed revenge and kept one passion hidden throughout his life: the brutal elimination of all vampires. His valiant, bloody fight against the undead was all but lost to history, until Grahame-Smith stumbled upon The Secret Journal of Abraham Lincoln. Using the journal as his guide, Seth reconstructs Lincoln’s life story and uncovers the role vampires played in the birth, growth, and near-death of our nation.

The book even has it’s own trailer. Lincoln in hand-to-hand combat with a vampire assassin? That’s not quite how I remember it from the history books. But if we’re to believe Seth Grahame-Smith’s historical horror novel, that’s exactly how it all went down. Check it out below.