My Tribute to the Universal Horror. We Belong Dead

We Belong Dead
This was commissioned for the Facebook page of the fanzine We Belong Dead, to include as many elements of Universal horror and other horror. Karlfritz Renfield is an amalgam of the three most famous characters of Universal regular Dwight Frye. Holmes and Watson are based on the portrayal of the characters by Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, the Moriarty brothers are the Moriarties played by George Zucco, Lionel Atwill and Henry Daniell in the Rathbone series, and Maleva Muriel is essentially Maleva, the character in the Wolf Man played by Maria Ouspenskaya. The Harry Alan Towers pub is named after the notorious British producer. Talbot is Lon Chaney's Wolf Man. Ygor in the body of the Monster is taken from Ghost of Frankenstein.
1. EXT. LONDON STREET, EVENING, 1943
The film's opening titles are in black and white, like the rest of the film, done in the style of a 1940s Universal horror, with melodramatic music and Gothic writing in white against a gray curtain-like background.
FADE-IN/CUT - The film begins in "London, England" as a subtitle suggests. It is black and white. It is clearly on a backlot. There is a green lawn/roundabout at the center of the street, where sits a phone box, a post box, a TRAFFIC POLICEMAN in full uniform and rain-cape, and a bomb shelter made out of corrugated metal sheeting, guarded by a moustachioed, roly-poly ARP WARDEN. There is a pub, "The Harry Alan Towers" and a "General Store". RENFIELD, a young if rather scruffy dark-haired man arrives outside. The sound of Big Ben's bells can be loudly heard.
RENFIELD (in mangled posh English accent, to TRAFFIC POLICEMAN)
Excuse me, sir, where is the War Office?
TRAFFIC POLICEMAN (cockney, authoritative)
Just along the avenue, on your left, sir!
RENFIELD (as he leaves)
Thank you, sir!
CUT - RENFIELD arrives at the large, brown-brick WAR OFFICE, complete with rotating "NEW SCOTLAND YARD"-esque sign outside.
2. INT. WAR OFFICE, LONDON, EVENING, 1943
CUT - RENFIELD enters the WAR OFFICE. There, waiting at his desk (filled with clutter such as stakes, glass jars
, newspapers, a pistol and a rotary-dial phone) is the pipe-smoking, bespectacled, grey-haired GENERAL VAN HELSING.
CLOSE-UP - RENFIELD is shocked.
VAN HELSING (wry smile)
I've gone up in the world.
RENFIELD (bowing down and saluting)
Yes, I know. Admiral Moriarty told me.
VAN HELSING (quizzical)
Which one?
RENFIELD (stern)
The bald one in the fez, just before he was killed.
VAN HELSING (puffing on his pipe)
Ah, James, well, what's going on in Vasaria?
RENFIELD (begins a flashback)
Well, it's a long story...
3. EXT. VASARIA, EUROPE, MORNING, 1943
CUT - We see scenes of snowy white mountains, gothic castles, men in lederhosen milking cows, accompanied by RENFIELD'S OOV narration.
RENFIELD (OOV)
I had just come back to Vasaria to analyze the coffin of Count Dracula being brought from Transylvania to Castle Frankenstein. Master Frankenstein wanted it as a decoration. Little did I know that Master Frankenstein was working for the Nazis.
CUT - We see RENFIELD leave a seaplane (despite being nowhere near water) and enter a nice little Alpine village that is clearly the London backlot decked out with lots and lots of snow and paintings of mountains in the background.
CLOSE-UP - An elderly Welsh Burgomeister, DENNEHY appears.
DENNEHY (large, hammy accent)
Hello, I am Mr. Dennehy. You must be Karlfritz Renfield, who is here to oversee the coffin delivery.
RENFIELD (apologetic)
No, just, Renfield. You are the Burgomeister. I am indeed here for the coffin delivery, though.
DENNEHY (nodding)
Yessum.
CUT - RENFIELD gets onto DENNEHY's horse-drawn coach. They ride through the mountains.
CUT - A shot of Castle Frankenstein, nestled among a mountaintop, with a long mountainside road for angry mobs to traverse.
CUT - The coach arrives at the castle. Outside to greet RENFIELD is the bizarre MRS. MALEVA MURIEL, a tall mannish woman, like one of those half-man/half-woman cabaret acts, but in this case half-gypsy crone and half-Cockney housekeeper.
MALEVA MURIEL (in Gypsy/Cockney hybrid)
I'm Maleva Muriel, the housekeeper. You must be here for the coffin.
RENFIELD (happy, waving goodbye)
Yes, I am. Thank you, Maleva! Goodbye, Mr. Dennehy!
CUT - DENNEHY rides off, only for a flock of bats to attack.
CUT - DENNEHY, a frenzied look on his face tries to pull the horses to the left. The coach falls off the cliff.
4. INT. GRAND HALL/CASTLE FRANKENSTEIN, DAY, 1943
CUT - MALEVA MURIEL leads RENFIELD into a hall with a grand staircase, a huge stained-glass window overlooking it, skulls on staffs used as candle-holders and various dungeon doors.
RENFIELD (amazed, but haunted-looking)
Is this it?
MALEVA MURIEL (laughing)
Is this it, of course not, this is only the hall!
RENFIELD (overwhelmed)
I know, but it is so big.
CLOSE-UP - MALEVA MURIEL, looking gormless.
MALEVA MURIEL (laughing, cackling)
Big, big, it's bigger than big, it is gigantic!
CUT - FRANKENSTEIN goes down the staircase, a tall, bulky, flat-headed black-haired man with an unearthly pallor, facial scarring, and a scarf around his neck.
FRANKENSTEIN (slow, Mid-Atlantic, accentless)
Hello, Master Renfield.
CUT - RENFIELD is surprised by the bulky FRANKENSTEIN.
FRANKENSTEIN (walking towards RENFIELD)
What is it, dear boy?
RENFIELD (shrugging shoulders)
You look different, that's all. You seemed smaller, slimmer, meek and mild, just different!
FRANKENSTEIN (hammy, like an OTT North American Shakespearean actor)
Different, of course I am different! What do you take me for, a fool?
CLOSE-UP - RENFIELD.
RENFIELD (confused)
No, of course not.
CUT - FRANKENSTEIN lifts a skull from a candle-staff.
FRANKENSTEIN (even more hammy and theatrical/Shakespearean)
The tides of pain that wash me, day by day, night by night, side by side, I am left a husk. Being saddled with two brains is a sin. I am neither me or him, just all. You do not know what it is like to be half a shell. That coffin, its soil, its blood, I need it.
RENFIELD (puzzled)
Did you say two brains? What, you are the Monster?
CUT - MALEVA MURIEL pats RENFIELD on the back.
MALEVA MURIEL (kind, considerate, clear)
Yes and no, my husband Ygor was a blacksmith and he died, after one too many fights with the Baron Doctor Frankenstein. He fell off the cliff like poor Mr. Dennehy. Frankenstein allowed me to take a job here, which had driven Ygor insane. There was a hunchbacked assistant here, rather like you, named Karl, or was it Fritz? Well, anyhow, Karlfritz had accidentally placed the brain of an idiot child into the Monster that Frankenstein had built, but we put Ygor's brain instead.
FRANKENSTEIN (in Ygor's Eastern European accent)
Indeed you deed, dahlin' Moor-eel! Indeed you deed!
MALEVA MURIEL (wise)
Well, all was well until the Baron Doctor himself hit his head on the roof, while trying to adjust the window that lets in lightning to recharge Ygor.
The lightning then hit the Baron Doctor, placing him in a coma, a state a quarter behind alive and three quarters towards death!
CUT - Random image of thunder striking the castle.
CUT - RENFIELD looks, reacts curiously, moves slightly away from MALEVA MURIEL.
RENFIELD (curious)
So, then you put his brain in too!
MALEVA MURIEL (lamentable)
Alas, yes, creating a nightmarish composite! Only the curse of a vampire can save him.
CUT - FRANKENSTEIN shrieks.
FRANKENSTEIN (in IGOR's voice)
Eeh haf soo fah commence-shed werk oon a veery impoorthan meeshon - to remove ze two bray-eens and make Frankenstein immoor-thal for-avar!
CUT - FRANKENSTEIN lifts a candle-staff/lever which pulls up from the basement (via an emergency trap door) an impressively carved ornate Gothic coffin on a stretcher. FRANKENSTEIN lifts the coffin with a gleeful expression contorted through his stiff face. Inside the coffin is the short-haired, handsome but gaunt, dark-haired Nazi-uniformed DR. FRANKENSTEIN himself, in a coma.
CUT - The stained-glass window opens up to let a cartoon bat in, which glides down and quickly transmogrifies, via at first the pencil lines bending and skewering into a cartoon image of COUNT DRACULA, which then melds into live-action, improbably in full evening-dress, medallion and slicked-back comb-over of dyed black hair, pale skin, deep hypnotic eyes and fangs.
MALENA MURIEL (shocked)
Why is he in clothes?
COUNT DRACULA (thick accent)
They're shrunken down veery schmall! I am here to transfer my life essence to Frankenstein.
RENFIELD (bowing down)
Yes, master.
FRANKENSTEIN (again Shakespearean)
We need to go to the lab. The brains need swapping.
5. INT. LAB/CASTLE FRANKENSTEIN, EVENING, 1943
CUT - FRANKENSTEIN'S MONSTER, COUNT DRACULA, RENFIELD and MALENA MURIEL carry the corpse in the coffin up to the grand, almost entirely white upstairs lab, dominated by huge bottles, glass tubes, a stretcher, a magnifying light, a lightning shaft streaked with sparks and an oven. FRANKENSTEIN'S MONSTER (FRANKENSTEIN) changes into full surgical gear, cap and gown.
FRANKENSTEIN (muffled by mouth-cover)
Pass the scalpel!
MALEVA MURIEL (increasingly Cockney)
What is it, dearie?
FRANKENSTEIN (removing mouth cover, angry)
Pass the scalpel!
CUT - MALEVA MURIEL passes the scalpel.
CLOSE-UP - FRANKENSTEIN cuts into his head, cutting along the forehead, offering a brief glimpse of a wrinkled, pulsating brain.
FRANKENSTEIN (operatic)
Remove it! The other brain is now heart, dearest Muriel!
CUT - MALEVA MURIEL rips the brain out. FRANKENSTEIN'S MOTHER, now YGOR cries like a baby.
COUNT DRACULA (accent less pronounced to avoid confusion with YGOR)
He's been briefly rendered brainless by the trauma of the operation.
CUT - COUNT DRACULA is given the brain by MALEVA MURIEL, and opens the coffin, now placed on the stretcher. He lifts the removal top coffin lid, and takes off DR. FRANKENSTEIN's wig, revealing that he currently has no brain. The COUNT slots the brain in place.
COUNT DRACULA (accent more pronounced when he gets louder)
Renfield, pull the string, pull the string, Renfield!
CUT - Renfield pulls a long shower-switch-type string that opens up the lightning shaft.
CUT - A brief shot of the lightning shaft's cap, a circle diving into six sections that slide away to let the lightning in. The lightning zaps down.
CUT - The lightning hits DR. FRANKENSTEIN, reactivating his coma. DRACULA goes down and bites him. DRACULA shrivels up in the process, and collapses, leaving only his clothes and some ash. DR. FRANKENSTEIN reawakens.
DR. FRANKENSTEIN (in his normal Shakespearean manner, touching his face, increasingly loud)
I am alive! I am alive! I can talk, dance and rhyme, do some crime! My spirit is rejoined. I am undead. I cannot die. I am IMMORTAAAAAALLLL! I shall now look out of the window and see the full prime of Nazi Europe, as it dominates Vasaria. The local marches in their full glory!
CUT - DR. FRANKENSTEIN looks out a window.
CUT - To represent a "local march", footage of the Nuremberg Rallies is placed deliberately dodgily into the film to show the might of Nazi Europe.
FRANKENSTEIN (OOV)
Ah, happy days!
CUT - RENFIELD is not amused.
RENFIELD (rushing)
I must go.
MALEVA MURIEL (cheery Cockney)
But you've only just arrived!
RENFIELD (rushing, feigning happiness)
I'll be back! I just realised. I have to go back to London.
RENFIELD (OOV - to footage of him leaving the house)
I had realised that Frankenstein was on the other side. That is why I came back.
6. INT. WAR OFFICE, LONDON, EVENING, 1943/INT. SWISS HOTEL, EVENING, 1943
CUT - RENFIELD is sitting with GENERAL VAN HELSING.
GENERAL VAN HELSING (relieved)
At last you are free and Dracula is dead...
RENFIELD (worried)
But Frankenstein has allied with the evil of Nazi Germany and the vampires, what does this mean?
GENERAL VAN HELSING (determined, stiff upper-lip)
It means action, boy! Call Moriarty's estate! I need to find a possible route, if Talbot doesn't come back. Maybe, his other brother, T'Otherone knows.
RENFIELD (confused)
T'Otherone, what an unusual name?
GENERAL VAN HELSING (smiling)
Yes, John, Jim and T'Otherone...
CUT - RENFIELD begins to dial on a rotary-dial phone on the desk.
CUT/SPLIT-SCREEN (between LONDON and SWISS HOTEL) - The phone rings at a luxurious lobby at a Swiss hotel. There, the large, brown-bearded, pebble-glass-spectacled, wild-haired JOHN MORIARTY answers it.
JOHN MORIARTY (cackling slightly, a bit frenzied)
Is that Hitler? John Moriarty here, speaking!
RENFIELD (shaking his head to VAN HELSING, puts on German acccent)
This is Commandant Strasser of Z-Camp, Vasaria. We have allied with the vampires.
JOHN MORIARTY (startled)
I know! Now, I am planning to evacuate all gypsy natives to England.
RENFIELD (shocked)
What, not send them to a concentration camp?
JOHN MORIARTY (whispering)
Some of those gypsy powers may be needed later on to control the vampires. I need to tell my brother that a Maleva Muriel and her daughter are being sent to the War Office.
RENFIELD (German accent slipping)
Ah, Maleva Muriel will be at the War Office.
JOHN MORIARTY (confused)
How do you know that?
GENERAL VAN HELSING (grabbing the phone off RENFIELD)
This is General Van Helsing here. Sorry, wrong number.
JOHN MORIARTY (genial)
Ah, Abraham, my good man, what is the trouble? You don't mind a gypsy in your building?
GENERAL VAN HELSING (laughing)
Not at all, boy, not at all, in fact I have become interested, due to my capture of Commandant Strasser, in the processes of the Nazi way.
JOHN MORIARTY
(as he puts down the phone)
Bye, I must go to see Dr. Frankenstein. Anyway, I knew it was you. Strasser was staked. He's ash!
CUT - The split-screen stops, the screen extends to cover the WAR OFFICE.
GENERAL VAN HELSING (angry, determined)
We need to take drastic action!
CUT - Suddenly, RENFIELD's head begins to shake, his face grossly contorting, his back hunched over.
RENFIELD (in a German accent)
'Ello, eeh am Fritz, servant to Mah-her-ster Frohnkenshteen! I am here to serve the Nassiz.
GENERAL VAN HELSING (shaking RENFIELD, hitting him)
Get it out of your system, young man! You've been possessed.
RENFIELD (in American accent)
Helloo, me name is Karl, and Frankenstein wants you, sir! Moriarty has put me in this new body, which looks very like my old one, or was it Fritz's?
GENERAL VAN HELSING (quizzical)
Fritz?
RENFIELD (reverts to German accent, rolls eyes, picks up gun from desk)
Yeh-is, I am Freetz. Die, sir, die, da, die, da, die!
GENERAL VAN HELSING (thinking, puts a pipe in his mouth)
Spit it out of your mind, boy, Renfield!
CUT/LAP-DISSOLVE - The superimposed spirits of FRITZ and KARL (who look identical to RENFIELD, but one is a hunchback and the other is dressed like a hillbilly in a white vest) walk out of the neatly-dressed RENFIELD. The spirits then fade away.
RENFIELD (realising in horror)
They were manipulating me. No wonder they kept calling me Karlfritz...
GENERAL VAN HELSING (urging RENFIELD)
Ring the correct number! Wait, someone is coming!
CLOSE-UP - RENFIELD suddenly looks smitten.
CUT/PAN-UP - We at first some ladies' feet in heels, then the camera pans up to reveal a lovely, tall, slender, lustrous brown-curled gypsy girl, MARIA.
MARIA (in slight accent)
Are you Renfield?
RENFIELD (stuttering)
Yes, yes, yes, you must be the daughter of...
MARIA (nodding)
Yes, Muriel, that is right.
RENFIELD (nodding back)
You are
welcome.
MARIA (kind)
Thank you, kind sir!
RENFIELD (curious)
Where is your mother?
MARIA (smiling)
She is here.
MALEVA MURIEL (rising behind MARIA)
Hello.
RENFIELD (slightly shocked)
Hello, Maleva Muriel.
MALEVA MURIEL (in pure gypsy voice)
Call me Muriel!
GENERAL VAN HELSING (chirpy)
Why are you here, Muriel, my old sugarplum?
MALEVA MURIEL (spiteful)
Stop it!
MARIA (puzzled)
Who is this man?
MALEVA MURIEL (clearly battered)
This is my old boyfriend, Abraham Van Helsing. We used to go hunting together in the snowy forests of Vasaria.
GENERAL VAN HELSING (drearily)
Stop reminding me, we need you Muriel. You are a consultant on lycanthropy. I am a consultant on vampirism.
RENFIELD (puzzled)
Lycanthropy?
MALEVA MURIEL (in slightly more pronounced accent)
Yees, the process of a man turning into a wolf via the process of metamorphosis triggered by the moon, his clothes still on him initially, but probably torn off by the force of the change.
MARIA (solemn)
I was a she-wolf, turned by a British soldier named Talbot. I was cured, but he was sent off, before he could be. He never came back.
MALEVA MURIEL (positive)
However, there is proof of sightings of a Wolf-Being, which possibly is a Wolf-Man. With my psychic connection, I can lure the Wolf-Man here.
7. INT. EXT. LONDON ROOFTOPS/LONDON STREET, DAY, 1943
CUT - We see the WOLF-MAN, TALBOT wander the rooftops, dressed in overalls, as the noise of an air raid approaches, a mane of hair all over his face, a dog-nose, . The CAMERA swoops down to reveal the back of the 'Harry Alan Towers', a little plotted allotment garden with no wall to separate from the little drainage half-pipe open tunnel and pavement, from where the ARP WARDEN observes the WOLF-MAN.
ARP WARDEN (blowing whistle, authoritative)
Are you alright, sir?
CLOSE-UP - The WOLF-MAN growls and then leaps down.
CUT - The ARP WARDEN runs, the CAMERA following him to the front of the street, towards the bomb shelter, made out of corrugated metal sheeting. Then, the WOLF-MAN jumps on him, and tosses him away.
CLOSE-UP - MALEVA MURIEL is humming, as she concentrates. The CAMERA pulls away to reveal she is outside, on the lawn, behind the bomb shelter. She steps out and confronts the WOLF-MAN.
MALEVA MURIEL (in thick accent to WOLF-MAN)
Halt! Halt!
CLOSE-UP/LAP-DISSOLVE - The WOLF-MAN turns into TALBOT, a burly, stiff-looking brown-haired man.
TALBOT (in American accent, recognises MALEVA MURIEL)
Maleva Muriel, it's you!
MALEVA MURIEL (quizzical)
Why are you here?
TALBOT (beginning to narrate a story)
I was part of a mission with the Invisible Agent, a top-secret experiment governed by Moriarty. The person chosen was Hawley Jack Griffin, a scientist himself and a former safecracker/gentleman thief.
8. INT. BRITISH WAR OFFICE, VASARIA, DAY, EARLY 1943
CUT - We see a flashback, the blond-wig-and-fez-wearing, besuited JAMES MORIARTY briefing TALBOT and GRIFFIN, in bandages, sunglasses and smoking jacket. The room has a blackboard and a large black-walled office, a mummy's tomb behind the desk
JAMES MORIARTY (upper-class, RP, pointing at blackboard/map with snooker cue)
Men, we have to travel to Vasaria to Z-Camp, and retrieve top secret files relating to a transported coffin from Transylvania, owned by a Commandant Srasser.
GRIFFIN (erudite, posh, smoking a pipe)
Yes, jolly easy stuff! Let's go!
TALBOT (laid-back)
Yeh right!
JAMES MORIARTY (strict)
Now, Talbot, this is serious.
CUT - Suddenly, JAMES MORIARTY splutters, keels over, his fez and wig falling off.
GRIFFIN (pointing at the mummy's tomb)
The killer is concealed, disguised as a mommy.
CUT - The killer falls out, wearing a light covering of bandages. It is FRITZ, who looks exactly like KARL and RENFIELD.
GRIFFIN (horrified)
They are my bandages. You have no right.
FRITZ (pleading, pathetic)
Eeeeehh am sorrrieee, sir!
CUT - TALBOT flies into a rage and turns into the WOLF-MAN, throwing FRITZ through the window.
9. INT. EXT. SNOWBANK, VASARIAN MOUNTAINS, DAY, EARLY 1943
In a clearly studiobound "exterior", outside the tall, gothic BRITISH WAR OFFICE, is a hill of snow. FRITZ's body falls down, in an avalanche, only to be met by the villainous COMMANDANT STRASSER, tall, lean, killer cheekbones, blond, almost vampiric. He stands with a pistol in one hand.
COMMANDANT STRASSER (sibilant German accent, cold, icy)
I await your murder.
GRIFFIN (confident)
No, of course not!
COMMANDANT STRASSER (almost about to laugh)
Why not?
GRIFFIN (his bandages shrivel up to reveal a smile)
You're not one of us.
COMMANDANT STRASSER (feigning stupidity)
What do you mean?
GRIFFIN (laughing)
You're not human!
COMMANDANT STRASSER (horrified)
I am!
CUT - As COMMANDANT STRASSER stands there, TALBOT leaps from behind, bites him and turns him into a vampire/WOLF-MAN hybrid, pale, wispy, fur, elongated bone structure.
GRIFFIN (laughing)
You are a vampire!
COMMANDANT STRASSER (dying, deranged with posthumous excitement)
I am - the first of a new breed!
CUT - GRIFFIN takes off his clothes, and then snatches out of STRASSER's pocket, the file, in an envelope. The envelope seems to be floating due to GRIFFIN being invisible.
TALBOT (OOV)
That was the last I 'saw' of Griffin. He's been stuck out there ever since.
10. LONDON STREET, DAY, 1943
CUT - RENFIELD nears TALBOT. GENERAL VAN HELSING arrives. It is getting foggier. Air raid sirens blare.
RENFIELD (suspicious)
I was sent afterward, but there was no sign of Griffin.
MALEVA MURIEL (using her powers)
I can sense Griffin but he's not in the homeland. He's here in London, as is John Moriarty. I can sense some kind of Nazi meeting. They plot to unleash the vampires onto London.
TALBOT (nodding)
Yes, what do you think, General?
GENERAL VAN HELSING (determined, patriotic, hanging out of telephone box, starts ringing an emergency hotline)
I'll send the Stake-Squad, son.
CUT - MARIA appears, running towards TALBOT.
MARIA (running to TALBOT, smitten)
Larry, you're alive!
TALBOT (morose)
Maria, my dear, we cannot love.
MARIA (saddened)
Why not?
TALBOT (morose)
The moon is my only obstacle. I can only be cured by death, killed by one who loves me.
MARIA (hopeful)
I survived.
TALBOT (sad)
That was because you had been cured within 24 hours after the bite. Plus, your maternal psychic link!
MARIA (confused)
I do not have any silver.
MALEVA MURIEL (hovering in, gives MARIA a fork)
This may do the trick.
CUT - As MARIA attempts to jam the fork into TALBOT, more figures rise out of the fog. YGOR/FRANKENNSTEIN'S MONSTER is first, shouting and ranting and acting violent.
YGOR (ranting, mindless)
Kill! Kill! Kill! Need to die!
MARIA (shocked)
Father, what happened?
MALEVA MURIEL (solemn)
I forgot to tell you, but you were there, weren't there, RENFIELD.
RENFIELD (nodding)
Yes, he's become a tool.
MARIA (shocked)
Of Dr. Frankenstein?
MALEVA MURIEL (morose)
Yes, he needs them. They are working with Moriarty to create a race of super-vampires.
YGOR (nodding, in agreement, thick European accent)
That is right. My mind is gained. Help separate me from my insufferable pain!
MALEVA MURIEL (maternal, lovingly)
I will, my husband.
CUT - Suddenly, YGOR is dragged into the fog by an arm, which then reveals itself as the arm of the bearded, fat, pebble-bespectacled JOHN MORIARTY.
JOHN MORIARTY (genial)
Hello, hello, hello!
GENERAL VAN HELSING (confused)
What did you do with Renfield?
JOHN MORAIRTY (laughing)
Just sent him back to where he belongs!
MARIA (horrified)
Where?
JOHN MORIARTY (laughing)
Up in the air, in the Hindenburg II!
GENERAL VAN HELSING
What, you plot to use a new airship and rain London down with vampires?
JOHN MORIARTY (nodding)
Yes, controlled via a mutation machine controlled by Frankenstein!
11. INT. HINDENBURG SHIP OVER LONDON, DAY, 1943
CUT - After a brief model shot of the exuberant, huge, elongated HINDENBURG II.
CLOSE-UP - On DR. FRANKENSTEIN's laughing, maniacal face. The CAMERA pulls out to reveal that he is in a huge marbled dining room, his only mate the BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, beautiful, pale, crazy-haired. She sits there, partially inanimately, his own personal sex doll.
BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (stilted, Mid-Atlantic)
Turn on the bat-meld, dearie!
CUT - FRANKENSTEIN pulls down a lever, a huge tube coming down, RENFIELD trapped inside, pale as a bedsheet, dripping blood/chocolate sauce from his fangs. He is screaming to be released, but is muted by the soundproof glass.
FRANKENSTEIN (laughing)
You're not complete yet!
CUT - Out of another tube rise a flock of VAMPIRE BATSs that fly out of a window and down through the clouds into London.
FRANKENSTEIN (praising his own genius)
My piece de resistance!
CUT - RENFIELD starts mouthing to the BRIDE, who can understand him. She grabs FRANKENSTEIN's scalpel. The CAMERA moves, following the BRIDE, as she digs the scalpel into FRANKENSTEIN's brain. There is no blood. She then removes his brain and throws it out of the window. RENFIELD is drugged by a gas in the tube. He falls asleep. The glass opens up.
CLOSE-UP - RENFIELD's head is bloodlessly opened up. The brains are swapped by the BRIDE.
CUT - FRANKENSTEIN awakens, and opens up a floorboard to reveal a huge loudspeaker on a mechanical arm that rises out.
12. EXT. LONDON STREET, EVENING, 1943
CUT - Hordes of animated black VAMPIRE BATS rain onto LONDON, passing stock shots of TOWER BRIDGE and BIG BEN.
CUT - The bats transform via animation into pale VAMPIRE GIRLS with clawed hands and wearing floaty white nightgowns advance, and tear down the BOMB SHELTER.
CUT - VAN HELSING breaks out an invisible stake, doused with GRIFFIN's acid.
GENERAL VAN HELSING (to MALEVA MURIEL)
These are stakes, invisible, doused with Griffinium, developed by the late scientist.
CUT - The PHANTOM OF THE OPERA in full mask and outfit appears.
PHANTOM (removing his mask to reveal nothing but blood dripping out of nowhere)
It is I, Griffin!
MALEVA MURIEL (screaming, pulls out a stake from under her sleeve)
Blodd is on his invisible teeth! He must have been vampirised.
CUT - TALBOT randomly bites a busty VAMPIRE GIRL, who is staked on a sign reading "STENOGRAPHER'S ACADEMY, 5 MILES".
MARIA (pleased)
Thank you for saving me! I am immune to the bite, due to wolf-blood.
TALBOT (gives VAN HELSING a can)
It's garlic soup. We need to place it in a bomb, drop it from a high atmosphere and then the vampires will die.
GENERAL VAN HELSING (thinking)
Renfield is in the airship above. We need to contact him.
CUT - YGOR appears, and lifts the remains of the BOMB SHELTER. JOHN MORIARTY is coming near him. He squashes MORIARTY with them.
MALEVA MURIEL (hugging YGOR)
Good job, Ygor!
YGOR (tightening his neck-bolts)
I did it for you, love!
RENFIELD/LOUDSPEAKER (OOV, RENFIELD's voice)
This is Renfield. The bride and I are in the process of collecting General Van Helsing. I am locked in the body of Dr. Frankenstein.
CUT - GENERAL VAN HELSING holds out the can of soup, which is pulled up by a giant claw and pulled upward towards the AIRSHIP. The can of soup is put inside the empty bomb.
CUT - The AIRSHIP flies upward and explodes, garlic rain falling down.
CUT - A VAMPIRE MAN is burnt to ash by the garlic rain.
MARIA (looking through binoculars)
No sign of survivors!
MALEVA MURIEL (blessing herself)
At least they saved London.
CUT - MARIA and TALBOT and MALEVA MURIEL and YGOR/FRANKENSTEIN'S MONSTER walk along.
13. INT. THE HARRY ALAN TOWERS PUB/LONDON, DAY, 1943
Inside the pub, all horsebrasses, union jacks, Cockneys in flat caps, a few PEARLY KINGS AND QUEENS, the BRIDE in full JACK THE RIPPER tart get-up, VAN HELSING enters, a proud smile on his face. A short, middle-aged, white-moustached man in a panama hat, DR. WATSON greets him.
DR. WATSON (patting VAN HELSING's back)
So, you're General Van Helsing, the man who saved London...
GENERAL VAN HELSING (surprised)
Yes, and you are...
DR. WATSON (proud, gives VAN HELSING a medal)
Dr. John Watson, Scotland Yard, here is the Royal Medal of Military Bravery...
GENERAL VAN HELSING (surprised)
It was a team effort. The war's not over yet. You're Holmes' sidekick.
DR. WATSON (smiling, wise)
Yes, I am. But you are helping the war end!
CUT - At the end, a surprised VAN HELSING dodders out, trying to find the others who helped him.