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...
Scotty moves into Mrs. Engels' seaside mansion where three other college students are boarding. Mrs. Engels prefers to stay in her room in the attic, but her son Mason helps the students get settled. Soon one of the students is killed. The policemen on the case begin uncovering the Engels family secret as the remaining students become endangered
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 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.
Psychiatrist Sam Foster has a new patient, Henry Letham, who claims to be suicidal. In trying to diagnose him, Sam visits Henry's prior therapist and also finds Henry's mother -- even though Henry has said that he murdered both of his parents. As reality starts to contradict fact, Sam spirals into an unstable mental state. Then he finds a clue as to how and when Henry may try to kill himself, and races to try to stop him.
African-American student Malik is on a track scholarship; academics are not his strong suit, and he goes in thinking that his athletic abilities will earn him a free ride through college. Fudge, a "professional student" who has been at Columbus for six years so far, becomes friendly with Malik and challenges his views about race and politics in America.
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 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.
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.
Two college students share a ride home for the holidays. When they break down on a deserted stretch of road, they're preyed upon by the ghosts of people who have died there.
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.
A graduate student and obsessive runner in New York is drawn into a mysterious plot involving his brother, a member of the secretive Division.
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.
As the 15th anniversary of a fatal high school shooting approaches, former pupil Diana McFee is haunted by memories of the tragedy. After losing her best friend Maureen in the attack, Diana has been profoundly affected by the incident - her seemingly perfect life shaped by the events of that day.
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.
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.
Saara is a middle-aged doctor who one day finds out that her architect-husband Leo is having an affair with a younger woman, Tuuli. Instead of revealing her true identity, Saara pretends to be someone else and makes friends with Tuuli. At the same time she is planning the best way to revenge her husband and his lover.
A dramatization of the Montreal Massacre of 1989 where several female engineering students were murdered by an unstable misogynist.