Nashville Death Party

Horror comedy, 89 pages.

Log Line

When Nashville’s reputation as Dinner Party City is threatened by a homicidal maniac, one washed up cop and a group of twenty-somethings fight back.

Summary

Everyone in Nashville loves dinner parties; it’s just always been that way and it’s what the city’s known for. Randy and Stephanie are planning for the next stage in their life when murders start happening at dinner parties all across the city. Policeman Galston, close to retiring, makes it his personal mission to catch the killer, but he proves elusive. It all comes down to the biggest Halloween dinner party Nashville’s ever seen.

Background

In the tradition of Night of the Creeps, this is my absurdist slasher flick. Nashville, known as Music City, is instead given a new identity in this script, with a long and storied history of dinner parties going back to the Civil War (Wichita, as it would have it, is known here as Music City, and El Paso is Hollywood).

I’ve always loved horror films but used to discount slashers as formulaic. It took me a while to realize that’s part of what makes them so great, and Nashville Death Party was me playing with the formula and injecting a healthy dose of humor while I did it.

The killer was supposed to be played by Nicolas Cage, and the insane brawl at the Halloween party in the third act is still one of my favorite scenes that I’ve written.