The Best Movie Never Made

Inspiration struck when I caught a Dodgers game with Bill, Susannah and Kellee earlier this week.  And while I may never know if it was the stale Cracker Jacks or the flat soda that catalyzed this incredible idea, I do know that the world needs, now more than ever, its first horror-themed sports movie.  So I humbly present my loose concept for Vumpire - the story of an immortal umpire with a taste for sunflower seeds, chewing tobacco and warm, delicious human blood.

We open as a league-wide umpire’s strike threatens to derail the entire season.  With minor league umps refusing to cross the picket line, it looks like handsome and underestimated rookie HAWK “THE HAWK” HAWKINGTON won’t be able to play his first year in the big leagues.  He’s promised his grandfather – who’s dying in the hospital – that he’d hit a home run for him before he goes to that big baseball stadium in the sky.  Everything changes when evil baseball commissioner STUD RILEY decides to hire the only umpire willing to go to work: a Transylvanian import named DRAKE YULA.  Even though some disagree with the decision – including Stud’s own daughter, beauty queen/professional Red Cross blood drive volunteer CHESTY RILEY – the league begins regular season play.  ”Regular,” however, soon becomes a relative term.  Thanks to Drake’s sunlight allergy, all of the games are played at night.  And as Hawk sees him attacking bat boys during the seventh inning stretch, we learn that – here comes the twist – this umpire is a vampire!  He’s a vumpire!

Hawk takes his story to Stud, who shrugs off his concerns.  Ever since the bat boys started turning players into vampires, teams are exhibiting superhuman strength on the diamond – attendance is through the roof!  As punishment for his insolence, Stud benches Hawk for the rest of the season.  Now he’ll never be able to hit the home run he promised to his grandfather!  Chesty, it turns out, is the only one who agrees with Hawk’s concerns.  Since her blood drive van was raided to fill the player’s water bottles, she owes the Red Cross forty gallons of human blood…and they’ll take it out of her if they need to.  The unlikely pair – who hate one another at the outset – team up to form an unlikely pair of vumpire hunters.  And as they search for Drake’s lair, doing battle with demonic hot dog vendors and evil peanut salesmen along the way, a funny thing happens.  These two opposites begin to fall in love.  Just as they realize their feelings for one another, however, Drake kidnaps Chesty with a plan to make her his vumpire queen!

Hawk, at his lowest, visits his grandfather in the hospital.  He tells him everything…that the woman he loves has been kidnapped, that he’ll never be able to hit that home run and that this is one game the Vumpire’s going to win.  Which is right when his grandfather reveals that he did battle with the same vumpire fifty years before – he’s an old school Vumpire Hunter!  Holy.  Shit.  Revealing that the monster’s secret lair rests beneath the soil of the pitcher’s mound, he sends his grandson to the stadium with renewed purpose.

Hawk arrives to the stadium, where the final game of the world series is about to start.  The place is filled with vumpires.  They’re on the field, in the stands…and all under the Drake’s control.  The vile creature addresses his unholy army over the jumbotron, ordering them to attack major cities after the final inning. He and Chesty, who he’ll turn into a vumpire during the seventh inning stretch, will rule over them like Gods.  First the world series…then the world!  And with that, he tosses out the first pitch…using Stud’s severed head is the ball.  It’s totally gross and totally awesome all at the same time.

Lucky for us, Hawk has no intention of living in a world filled with vumpires.  Cleverly disguising himself in the costume for the league’s new mascot – a demonic beast with baseball bats for fangs – he sneaks onto the field with plans to drive a stake into the pitcher’s mound, killing Drake once and for all.  The plan changes when one of the batboys recognizes his cocksure swagger, causing the players to stop the game…and start closing in on Hawk!  Drake, emerging from the pitcher’s mound, orders them back – he wants to finish this himself.  Using his superhuman vumpire strength, he starts throwing pitches at Hawk. Radar guns explode all around the stadium as the balls burst into flames in midair – they’re going that fast.  Diving for a bat, Hawk starts swinging to deflect the projectiles.  He connects with one of the pitches, causing the bat to shatter as he sends it right out of the park.  The stadium’s lights all explode as he gets the home run he’s always dreamt of!

Taking a splintered section of the bat – which just so happen to be a perfect stake – he loads it into a t-shirt gun that he fires right at Drake.  The stake pierces the vumpire’s heart and sends him straight back to hell.  He explodes into a crazy huge fountain of blood that’s 110% awesome.  No longer under Drake’s control, all the vumpires in the stadium turn back into regular humans.  Hawk is reunited with Chesty, who pays back the Red Cross with the blood that drenches the stadium…not realizing that it’s infected vumpire blood!  THE END?!?!

Now send me 125 million dollars so we can get this movie made.  Let’s do this thing!