. . . EQUUS TWO . . .
. . . in a dream, I laid out my pitch for a sequel to Equus:
"-our troubled young man leaves dreary old England for Hollywood, where he sweet talks his way into directing an independent feature for a Roger Corman-esque producer. This low-budj flick becomes his calling card for the majors, who throw him a low stakes comeback vehicle for an aging Marlon Brando-esque star that becomes the shock hit of the summer. Now our troubled thirtysomething can pursue his dream project: an epic western taking on themes of class struggle and range warfare and the sunset of the Mythic Wild West-and the Movie Gods shower him with cash beyond the dreams of avarice, and he shoots it on desolate locations out in Utah and Wyoming, where he builds elaborate soundstages indistinguishable from real life towns, and even though he's not permitted to actually harm the human performers he does put them through hellish twenty-three hour days, requiring thousands of takes just to get that one detail exactly right. In the depths of this slog, our Great Director snorts five mile rails of cocaine-he calls it the Molar Cracker Express-and begins to abuse the hundreds of horses that are already being overworked under dubious conditions. And that's when he starts hearing the creepy voice of the horse god from the previous movie. And where did that voice come from, hmm? That was never fully explained the first time around, was it? No. Maybe it had something to do with those TV jingles he obsessively sang, hmmm? Put a pin in that. Sooo, after shooting several horses dead to get that authentic dead horse vibe for the shot, the horse god accuses him of murder outright in a strangely familiar drawling voice. A terrifying stallion cloaked in spectral fire chases our Great Director all through the elaborate frontier town set, lighting off everything and everyone. In desperation, the Great Director summons the MGM lion to fight the hellhorse. But the hellhorse tears out the elderly logo lion's throat with ease, and finally catches up with the Great Director. And the hellhorse speaks, saying,
"Hello. I'm Mr. Ed. And it's my turn, now, motherfucker!"
-well, it goes rather poorly for the Great Director. All those years of living in fear of a horse god . . . and it was merely misremembered dialogue from an old TV show. Yep. So, the hellhorse bites his face off as the frontier town set burns to ashes. Cut to a lavish golf course where not only do we see Apollo and Dionysus enjoying the holes . . . but they go riding off together into the sunset in the same golf cart! Roll credits."
. . .of course, it is all still but a dream . . .
