There's this fantastic improv show on WNYC called "The Truth". Headed up by a chap named Jonathan Mitchell, these guys generate a story, usually dark and ironic, and then workshop the hell out of it with their ridiculously talented cast, then edit it down into something succinct and powerful. All of their pieces are worth a listen, but this one, called "That's Democracy", I knew at once would make a tremendous short film. Jon Bowden and I contacted TheTruth in New York, and managed to strong-arm them into letting us to turn their podcast into a film. And so here it is...
Six high school teenagers decide to commit suicide together, but their plans soon go awry when one of them has something darker in mind as well.
Arthur Bishop thought he had put his murderous past behind him when his most formidable foe kidnaps the love of his life. Now he is forced to travel the globe to complete three impossible assassinations, and do what he does best, make them look like accidents.
On Aug. 21, 2015, the world watches in stunned silence as the media reports a thwarted terrorist attack on a train that's bound for Paris -- an attempt prevented by three young Americans traveling together through Europe. The heroic and courageous actions of Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos and Spencer Stone help to save the lives of more than 500 passengers on board.
A young and naive college art student becomes obsessed with assuming the identity and personality of a departed coed who used to live in her room, and in so doing causes complications that result in two men, a student and her art professor, lusting after her.
A troubled and bullied high school student fights against judgement from his community after threatening to bomb the football team.
A dramatization of the Montreal Massacre of 1989 where several female engineering students were murdered by an unstable misogynist.
A successful woman in New York City finds her life upended when she is forced to confront a dark truth that threatens to unravel her meticulously crafted life.
A graduate student and obsessive runner in New York is drawn into a mysterious plot involving his brother, a member of the secretive Division.
After a local woman is murdered, a group of teenage liars create a warning e-mail of a serial killer named “The Wolf”, coming on the next full moon. The teens describe each death method The Wolf uses, but when the described victims actually do start turning up dead, suddenly no one knows where the lies end and the truth begins.
A sociopath gathers and drugs groups of college students to bring out their existing suicidal tendencies to the surface then walks among them to enjoy and record their deaths.
Set on an island off the coast, a techno rave party attracts a diverse group of college coeds and a Coast Guard officer. Soon, they discover that their X-laced escapades are to be interrupted by zombies and monsters that attack them on the ground, from the air, and in the sea, ruled by an evil entity in the House of the Dead... Prequel to the House of the Dead video games.
Dexter Cornell, an English Professor becomes embroiled in a series of murders involving people around him. Dexter has good reason to want to find the murderer but hasn't much time. He finds help and comfort from one of his student, Sydney Fuller.
After an attack leaves him in limbo -- invisible to the living and also near death -- a teenager discovers the only person who might be able help him is his attacker.
6th-grader Terkel begins experiencing a streak of bad luck after sitting on a black spider. His teacher dies and is replaced by the strange Justin. At home, Terkel's Uncle Stewart erupts in sporadic fits of rage, and at school Terkel is bullied by two boys after they learn that fat Doris likes him. On a school camping trip, Terkel begins receiving death threats and must figure out who wants to kill him.
In the 1960s, two classmates go looking for their missing friends and teachers, all of whom took part in an illegal book club, only to come face to face with ghosts and deformed monsters that have taken over their school.
A school teacher discusses types of government with his class. His students find it too boring to repeatedly go over national socialism and believe that dictatorship cannot be established in modern Germany. He starts an experiment to show how easily the masses can become manipulated.
The Candyman, a murderous soul with a hook for a hand, is accidentally summoned to reality by a skeptic grad student researching the monster's myth.
A young lawyer defends a black man accused of murdering two white men who raped his 10-year-old daughter, sparking a rebirth of the KKK.