Books > Igor Movie Novelisation > Excerpts

It was a dark, miserable night in Malaria. It was always dark and miserable in Malaria.

The entire country was dismal. Angry storm clouds rumbled with constant thunder. Craggy mountains and angular stone castles cast long, jagged shadows with every sickening flash of sulfurous lightning. Most of the plants had wilted and died off long ago, leaving only stunted, twisted trees.

A portly hunchback named Igor trudged through a cemetery dragging a wooden cart. He looked up. Lightning lit up the eternal night, exposing a limp, skinny body hanging from a noose on a tree.

"What are you doing?" Igor asked.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" the body answered.

Igor sighed. "You can't die, Scamper."

Scamper was a creepy-looking rabbit with long, stringy ears and a metal cap welded to his skull. He had an eternally negative outlook.

"Yeah," Scamper said bitterly. "Thanks to you and your irritating inventions."

"You're my most irritating invention so far," Igor replied. He cut the rope and Scamper fell into his cart with a thud.

Igor trudged slowly toward home. That home was the castle of Dr. Glickenstein, one of Malaria's leading Evil Scientists.

Evil Scientists were the rock stars of Malaria. Every year the best of them competed to create the world's most diabolical weapon. Once the winner was declared, other countries paid Malaria not to unleash its new evil weapon on them. Malaria got rich, the Evil Scientists got fame and fortune, and life was good for all Malarians...unless you happened to be born with a hunch on your back. Then you were stuck with life as an Igor, merely a lowly, humble assistant to an Evil Scientist, your very life subject to his whims and tempers. In that case, your existence could be summed up in two words: "Yes, master!"

But Igor had made up his mind to change the course of his predetermined life. Later, as he pored over his latest scientific plans in his tiny room in the depths of the cold stone castle, he pondered his plight. Perhaps there was a way to escape his dreary life as a mere --

"IGOR!"

Igor snapped out of his daydream at the sound of Dr. Glickenstein's voice. The impatient tone of his shout made it clear that the scientist had been calling him for a while. Quickly stuffing his plans back into the thin metal canister he wore around his neck, Igor rushed for the stairs.

"Sorry, master," he panted as he burst into the scientist's lab.

Dr. Glickenstein glared at him. "What did you say?"

Igor gulped, realizing his mistake: He had answered in his normal voice! "I mean..." He switched to the slurred, dull-sounding voice that all Igors used in front of their masters. "Sorry, master. I was in the bathroom. Had a bat stuck in the belfry, if you know what I mean."

Dr. Glickenstein was annoyed. He rubbed his left hand with his specially designed robotic right one. He had lost his original right hand in an unfortunate lab accident.

"I give you five minutes a week to take care of your business," the Evil Scientist snapped. "I'm not running a resort here, you know!"

"Yes, master," Igor replied.

"Now, if we're done with your toilet memoirs..." the scientist said, before barking out, "Pull the switch!"

"Yes, master." Igor hurried over to a switch on the wall. He threw it, and electricity began to surge through the lab. Dr. Glickenstein's latest evil invention started humming under its protective sheet, and the scientist smiled -- until a sudden burst of sparks and sizzles crackled from under the sheet. The invention shuddered...before coming to a complete stop.

The Evil Scientist screamed in frustration. "I should have become a travel agent like my mother said!" he cried. "I was never meant to be a scientist." He pointed to Igor. "You! Go find me a sixteen gigawatt temporal transducer."

Igor hesitated, knowing that his master was about to make a big mistake. "Excuse me, master," he slurred. "Are you sure you don't mean a twenty-one gigawatt?"

Dr. Glickenstein frowned. "You're correcting me?" He grabbed Igor with his robotic hand and tossed him across the lab. Igor rolled into a row of canisters, sending them flying like bowling pins. "Strike!" Dr. Glickenstein shouted with glee, then stormed out of the lab.

Igor sat up and rubbed his back. "Oww, my hunch," he moaned, before popping his hunch back into place with a loud crack. "Ah, much better."

He spotted Scamper nearby, holding on to the end of a chain. With his eyes, Igor followed the chain upward and saw that the other end was attached to a giant metal ball high overhead.

Igor sighed as Scamper released the ball. It plummeted down and crushed the rabbit beneath its immense weight.

A moment later Igor laid Scamper's squashed corpse on a concrete slab, then watched as it slowly expanded back to its normal shape.

Scamper sat up. "Will nothing end this vicious cycle?" he cried in frustration.

Igor had no answer for him. Neither did the other figure that appeared beside the slab. Well, not a figure, exactly. It was more like a brain in a jar...on wheels...with a robotic arm that had a clamp at its end.

"No fair!" the brain whined. "You wasted your Immortality Formula on the wrong guy, Igor. I want to live forever!"

"Really, Brain?" Scamper said wearily. "You want to be trapped in an endless nightmare, forced to keep living even though nothing matters?"

Brain looked confused. "Possibly. Uh, what did you just say?"

"Too bad Igor wasted his Intelligence Formula on me too, Brain," Scamper said with a slight smirk. "Or should I say, Brian?"

He pointed to the label on Brain's jar. Scrawled on it was the name "Brian."

"Hey!" Brain protested. "I was in a hurry." He scowled as he added, "Stupid permanent marker."

Igor had just glanced up at a clock on the wall of the lab. It was the Countdown Clock, and it read: 7 DAYS UNTIL THE EVIL SCIENCE FAIR.

"Enough!" he told his two science experiments. "The Evil Science Fair is in a week, and Glickenstein is going to lose again."

"Okay, I get it," Brain said cheerfully. "You don't have to beg me, Igor. You want me to fix his invention. Now, I'll just need a screwdriver, some nails, and my bag of marbles...."

"Don't touch his invention, Brain," Igor warned.

Brain frowned, insulted. "You're just jealous, like you were when I created that new word for good-bye." He prepared to storm off indignantly. "Well, snarfog, Igor! Snarfog forever!"

Igor rolled his eyes. "Do you know what he'd do to me if I fixed it? The same thing he'd do if he found out I invented you two."

He looked at a sign on the wall that said IGOR RECYCLING. It hung above the opening to a chute. There was a chute like that in every Evil Castle in Malaria.

"He'd recycle me," Igor said with a shudder. "Can you imagine being chopped up and used for body parts?" Then he frowned at the unfairness of it all. "If I had my shot, I could be one of the greatest Evil Scientists Malaria has ever seen...just like the great Dr. Schadenfreude!"

Igor © Exodus Film Fund I, LLC. All rights reserved. Igor™, and the names of the characters, events, items, and places therein, are trademarks of Exodus Film Fund I, LLC, under license to Simon & Schuster. All Rights Reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole of in part in any form.