King of Rhins Isle

“Skull Island from King Kong” by RKO Radio Pictures (1933)

What happens when an intrepid group of filmmakers and sailors explore a mysterious and uncharted island in the middle of Scottish waters?  What gargantuan horrors lurk within its dense forests and thick fog?  All will be revealed in this exciting tale, written on the 11th May 2016.

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“King of Rhins Isle“

In windswept Stranraer harbour, Rab McWheesht, famous for making dirty films in remote and exotic Scottish locations, had chartered Captain McNulty’s ramshackle ship Sleekit Bastard for his latest and greatest project. However, owing to the fact that there were next to no aesthetically pleasing women in the near vicinity, he had been unable to secure an actress beautiful enough for the lead female role. This upset the man greatly, for he had already arranged for the ship to sail the following day. The filmmaker was not one for planning ahead.

Desperate, McWheesht scoured the rain-slicked streets of Stranraer for such a lady for many hours. Eventually, he met a talentless, unattractive and penniless wreck of woman named Eryn Dunbar, and, seeing as he had little choice at that point, convinced the ill-smelling wretch to join him for the adventure of a lifetime. The promise of a battered fish supper sealed the deal.

After a bit of confusing paperwork, which was confusing only in that Eryn didn’t know how to spell her own name, the Sleekit Bastard soon got underway and puttered off into the murky grey waters of Loch Ryan.

During the arduous voyage, which was made all the more arduous by the fact that the captain was a prolific drunk with a secret stash of Curdled Slug brand whisky in his cabin, the surly first mate, a Mr. Jock McWhirter of Killantringan, gradually fell in love with the mentally and hygiene deficient Eryn. After weeks of sailing around in circles in Loch Ryan, McWheesht finally told Captain McNulty and McWhirter that their destination was to be Rhins Isle. Neither man had ever heard of such a place, and so they shouldn’t. It was a secret island. The kind that only exists in fairy tales or the middle of small sea lochs, permanently obscured by an impenetrable mist.

Upon questioning McWheesht further, the filmmaker explained to his crew that Rhins Isle lay somewhere in the middle of Loch Ryan and that no man had ever seen it, let alone set foot there. It was an uncharted island, shown only on a map in McWheesht’s possession. He realised that this made no sense but nevertheless produced an old map which allegedly proved its existence. McWheesht also spoke of something monstrous that resided there, a legendary entity known only as the “Big Yin”.

It didn’t take them too much longer to find the island which had so far managed to elude absolutely everyone who’d ever sailed in those waters. When McNulty had navigated through the dense fog and only hit six reefs, they anchored off the mysterious rock’s uninviting shore. From the deck they spied a native village. It was separated from the rest of the island by an enormous wall made out of discarded Buckfast bottles and moss-clad pit bull bones. A landing party, including the filming crew and Eryn, witnessed a group of native neds about to sacrifice a young single mother as the “bride o’ the Big Yin”. The intruders were soon spotted and the ned chief angrily stopped the ceremony. When he saw the blonde Eryn, he offered to trade six of his unkempt, heroin-addicted women for the “golden burd”. They declined his offer, laughed in his face and made several on-point insults about his haircut and fashion sense. After a brief scuffle in which the neds shouted a lot but kept running away whenever they got within striking distance, the film crew returned to the Sleekit Bastard.

That night, as the crew slept after a particularly indulgent drinking session whereby all of the captain’s Curdled Slug was consumed and the previously unmentioned cabin boy fell overboard and drowned, a band of native neds crept onto the ship and kidnapped Eryn from her bunk. She was bound and gagged, tea bagged and taken back to Rhins Isle. Once there, the neds dragged her through a colossal wooden gate in the great wall. Against her will, she was tied to a stone altar carved into the shaped of the Nike logo and offered up to the Big Yin.

After a brief ceremony in which redundantly repetitive trance music was played on bongos, the pine trees parted and the Big Yin himself emerged from the darkness. He was a giant haggis. With two gleaming black eyes and a mouth lined with razor teeth, the Big Yin was the most terrifying haggis Eryn had ever seen in her entire life. She tried to scream, but couldn’t on account of the sports sock in her mouth. The gargantuan haggis snatched up the petrified woman and carried her off into the dense forest.

By this point, the annoying trance music had roused the sleeping crew from their drunken dreams and they discovered Eryn to be gone. In a panic for her safety, they gallantly and awkwardly jumped into the inflatable canoe and made for Rhins Isle. They only capsized eight times but they reached the shore in the end. Once on the island, the crew removed some glass Buckfast bottles from the great wall and bottled the shrieking neds into submission. Once they had been taught a lesson and their bongos smashed, the bloodied ned chief explained that they had given the golden burd up as a bride to the Big Yin. The towering gate was opened and McWheesht, McWhirter and some brave volunteers entered the foreboding forest in search of their missing leading lady.

Not long into their journey, it became quite clear that there were other giant creatures on the island. Upon discovering a mound of excrement the size of a council flat, they were attacked by a giant battered sausage. It wriggled and rolled towards them like a worm in the throes of ecstasy, roaring into the night sky like an angry demon. Fortunately for the group, one of them was carrying a flare from the ship and fired it into the beast’s head, killing it instantly. Later on, when they attempted to cross a foul swamp in a makeshift raft, a colossal tartan sheep came crashing through the water and capsized their supplies, even killing some of the men. Out of sheer luck, one stick of dynamite was saved from the waters and used to blow the brute apart, sending tartan and mutton flying across the island.

Fleeing through the forest of horrors, they soon meet the Big Yin himself. The shambling tower of haggis immediately tried to stop them from crossing a ravine by shaking them off a fallen tree that the crew had been using as a bridge. Only the filmmaker McWheesht and the first mate McWhirter, on opposite sides, managed to survive the encounter with the enraged monster.

Meanwhile, a giant Belted Galloway bull had picked up Eryn’s scent, for it was strong and hard to miss on account of her soiling herself multiple times. The snarling bull found Eryn in the Big Yin’s nest and decided to make a meal out of her. But before it could pounce, the Big Yin returned from the ravine and killed the creature by tearing its head clean off and punting it like a football over a distant mountaintop.

Back at the now impassable ravine, Jock McWhirter and Rab McWheesht agreed upon a plan of action. It was pretty awkward to do, considering the distance between them and the fact that they had to shout really loud to be heard. McWheesht would return to the ned village for more weapons, knowing full well that neds would be stockpiling all manner of sadistic weapons with no realistic reason for owning. While he was doing this, McWhirter would stay behind and follow the Big Yin and Eryn.

Upon arriving in the Big Yin’s lair in a far off mountain cave, the huge haggis beast put Eryn down and left to go look for food. While her captor was gone, Eryn was terrorised by a mountain dwelling Scottish Terrier. It barked incessantly and even though it never actually bit her, it did annoy her greatly. In fact, it didn’t even attempt to physically attack the woman even once, it simply barked and tried to be as annoying as possible. The wee Scottie dug’s audio assault was to be its undoing however, as the Big Yin heard it and quickly returned to dispatch the yappy monster, snapping its spine before throwing it into a distant valley.

But the obnoxious terrier was not to be the only beast to attack the haggis titan’s lair, and the silently approaching McWhirter would take full advantage of that fact. For while the Big Yin was distracted killing a monolithic seagull that had tried to fly away with Eryn, McWhirter reached his love and together they clambered down the cliff face on a length of dangling vine. When the Big Yin had finally liberated the seagull from the binds of life, he quickly noticed that his bride was escaping and so started pulling the vine back up. In no mood for another encounter with the giant haggis, Eryn and Jock said a quick prayer and let go, plummeting into a deep lagoon far below. Luckily, they survived the fall unscathed and were soon running through the forest before eventually making their way back to the native ned village. Upon arrival, they were greeted by McWheesht, McNulty and the surviving crewmen, who were waiting with an array of highly illegal weapons.

Infuriated, the Big Yin tore after them, howling and roaring like a dinosaur with a sore throat. Smashing the great gate to pieces, the monolithic haggis immediately embarked upon a supremely bloody rampage throughout the village, consumed with raged that his bride had been stolen from him. Many cowering neds were converted into splodges and smears and many more were eaten or thrown like frisbees into the sea. On shore however, Rab McWheesht was concocting a plan. He was now determined to bring the Big Yin back to Stranraer alive, in order to exhibit him for monetary gain. Utilising the gas bomb that he had conveniently found in the ned chief’s weapon stash, the crew managed to knock the haggis giant unconscious and quickly wrapped him up in chains before securing him to the back of the Sleekit Bastard and setting sail for Stranraer, leaving the horrors of Rhins Isle behind forever.

A few weeks later, wherein the crew kept the creature subdued by giving it regular injections of heroin stolen from the ned chief’s stash, the ship arrived back in port. Subdued and shackled, the Big Yin was later presented to a Millennium Centre theatre audience as the “Biggest, Fiercest and Most Powerful Haggis in the Known World”. Eryn and Jock, now married, expecting their first child and proud tenants of a refurbished council house, were brought on stage to join the monster, followed by an invited group of local press and amateur photographers. During the impromptu photo shoot and selfie session which followed, the Big Yin, believing the ensuing camera flashes to be an attack, somehow managed to summon the strength in his haggis body to break loose from his chains, whereupon he completely lost the plot. Panic ensued.

The petrified audience began screaming and fleeing in absolute terror as the Millennium Centre was destroyed by the rampaging monster. Eryn was quickly whisked away by security to a hotel room on a high floor of the George Hotel, but the Big Yin, scaling the decrepit building, soon found her and snatched her up. Carrying the terrified woman in his huge haggis paw, he rampaged through the small town, killing, maiming and demolishing as he went. After levelling most of the town centre, he ultimately spied and subsequently scaled the tallest structure in all of Stranraer, the Castle of St. John.

Upon reaching the lofty heights of its ramparts, the Big Yin climbed to the very top of the castle’s flagpole where he roared to the sky in triumph and defiance. Surveying the smouldering wreckage that was the town around him, the Big Yin looked to his bride, cowering in his paw. But before he could do anything more, he was suddenly attacked by a squadron of radio controlled airplanes with homemade bombs strapped to them. They were controlled by local neds, who had been texted by their surviving relatives on Rhins Isle about what had just happened in their homeland. The Big Yin gently set Eryn down and began battling the whizzing planes, managing to swat one of them out of the air, sending it exploding into the Ryan Centre. But the raging haggis behemoth soon tired, and finally succumbed to the radio controlled bombs, whereupon he was blown apart like an over-microwaved sausage or a haggis that had been pressure-cooked into oblivion. The monstrous giant’s shredded carcass fell off the castle and landed with a mighty splat on the cobblestones below.

After the monster’s spectacular death, Eryn and Jock were reunited and embraced, both covered in bits of steaming hot haggis. Rab McWheesht soon arrived and pushed his way through a gathering crowd of townsfolk surrounding the Big Yin’s mangled body. When a policeman remarked that the neds’ radio controlled airplanes had gotten him, McWheesht slapped the man in the face and corrected him, “Oh no sir, it wasn’t the planes. It was questionable beauty that killed the ugly, brutish bastard. Now someone fetch me a fork, this haggis was made for eating!”