Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

I'm ever upper-class high society
God's gift to ballroom notoriety
And I always fill my ballroom, the event is never small
The social pages say I've got the biggest balls of all!
- AC/DC, "Big Balls"

Yes, if you didn't get your fill of jokes during teabagging week, fear not; Seth Grahame-Smith is here to save both you and Jane Austen with numerous double entendres about just what excites upper-middle class girls in 19th century England.

"Balls are always a subject which makes a lady energetic."
"It depends on who's throwing them, Mr. Darcy."

Of course, that's not the most obvious change that Pride And Prejudice has gone through here. While the basic plot, setting, characters and even most of Austen's original text remain the same, Seth Grahame-Smith has tweaked everything a little bit; London now is a walled-off fortress where few people get in or out, violence is part of everyday life, and the Bennet sisters have trained with Shaolin monks to become some of the fiercest warriors in Hertfordshire. Which doesn't exactly help their marriage chances in a country which, despite everything, still expects a wife to submit to her husband and stay at home.

My sisters and I cannot spend any substantial time searching for Wickham, as we are each commanded by His Majesty to defend Hertfordshire from all enemies until such time as we are dead, rendered lame, or married.

The reason for all of this, obviously, are the titular zombies who have been terrorizing England for the past 50-odd years, and which offer plenty of excuses for inserting action scenes into the story - both from fights against the undead, and from the generally much more violent society that their presence has created. See! Hordes of zombies attack the ball where Elizabeth and Darcy meet for the first time! See! One of Elizabeth's closest friends slowly turn into a zombie! See! Elizabeth Bennet fight off three ninjas blindfolded and eat the last one's still-beating heart before him! See! Certain characters get exactly what's coming to them!

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.

It's completely insane, of course. But the really insane thing is, it works. Obviously, most of it is played for laughs (though there's enough respect for the source material to keep it from turning into outright parody), but Grahame-Smith actually uses the zombie plot to underline and comment on Austen's themes. In classic horror fashion, the monsters work as an embodiment of the less tangible problems in life, the everyday struggle becomes an actual life-or-death fight. I'll give you three guesses as to how the confrontation between Elizabeth and Lady Catherine plays out. Hint: it involves katanas. Elizabeth fights society's norms and she fights zombies.

Elizabeth lifted her skirt, disregarding modesty, and delivered a swift kick to the creature's head, which exploded in a cloud of brittle skull and bone.

But mostly, it's just a lot of gory fun. So Grahame-Smith can't match Austen's dialogue (who can?), so it all gets a bit predictable (especially if you're read P&P before), but who cares? It's PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES, people. And they've got the biggest balls of them all.