Watching Ralph Macchio levitate a hamster

Sheridan Monkhouse is director of classics such as Hellmare, Platinum Desire, and The Canine Dimension. He writes exclusively for Screen Idle.

Ralph Macchio is an outstanding man. People know him for his incredible achievements in karate, but he is also one of the world’s foremost psychics. He keeps it quiet so he isn’t burnt as a witch, but I’m sure he won’t mind me telling this fascinating tale.

I met him when I was working on an idea I had for a follow-up to The Sixth Sense. It was to be called The Seventh Sense, and would have explored that incredible human ability to know where your partner’s keys are when they say they’ve lost them. The human mind is an incredible thing.

Sadly, the studio decided against it, but it did lead me to a fascinating and terrifying evening spent in the company of Ralph. He was briefly attached to the picture as a man who loses his keys and is terrified as he slowly becomes aware of his partner’s supernatural ability to know where they are.

Anyway, one evening we were enjoying a delightful game of twister and he revealed his psychic powers.

‘Sheridan, I can levitate a hamster,’ he said as I put my hand through his legs to a yellow spot. I was stunned, I collapsed immediately, ceding the match to Ralph.

He fetched his pet hamster and, in dread silence, I watched as he put a hand to his temple, closed his eyes and strained a little.

Incredibly the hamster rose several inches into the air, all through the powers of Ralph Macchio’s mind.

Naturally, I left immediately and resolved never to work with him again. Ralph’s an outstanding man, but I will not have the black arts on my set.