A MATTER OF TASTE (9-page short horror screenplay) by James Austin McCormick
Two crime bosses pit their wine tasting skills against one another in a contest to become head of the underworld – only they’re vampires and the wine isn’t actually wine.
James Austin McCormick’s humorous crime-horror hybrid pits underworld mafiosos, DUKE VINCENZO SALIBRI and ARTUR DUBEK, against each other for full control of the criminal empire as head of all families. How, you ask? In a wine tasting competition!
This clever low-budget affair follows OWEN REEVES, a young tabloid journalist who attends the historic taste-off in attempt to expose the dark and secretive mafia crime world.
With several underworld criminals serving as the audience, crime boss Salibri shows off his impeccable palate as first-up in the very pretentious competition. You can practically picture him sipping with his pinkie out.
SALIBRI
East European.
He places his glass down on the table.
SALIBRI
Slavic.
He looks at his opponent.
SALIBRI
Definitely peasant stock. I would say
the west bank of the Vlatava.
But these aren’t your typical mafiosos. And this isn’t a “wine” tasting – they’re vampires and what they’re tasting and describing is blood!
Though Salibri carries himself as the more sophisticated one, his brutish, seemingly less sophisticated opponent, Dubek, has a pretty strong palate, himself. Though rather than sipping, he prefers to chug the “wine”. Unfortunately for Dubek, he’s simply outclassed by the bourgeois Salibri, ultimately losing the taste-off.
But Dubek refuses to lose quietly and the seemingly innocent competition turns into a Shakespeare-esque sequence of double-crosses that will inevitably cause a war between the old and new families. And in the midst of all the mayhem, our human journalist, Owen, is outed by MORTARUS, the meeting’s mediator.
MORTARUS
Mr Owen Reeves, a human who bribed our
official chronicler to trade places with
him here today. He works for one of the
lower order tabloids. No doubt he expected
it to be his big scoop, exposing our world
to the humans.
The fate of Owen’s career (and life) now lies in the hands of a room full of vampire crime bosses.
Smart and witty, McCormick’s script offers a new twist on both mafia films AND vampire films.
BUDGET: Low. One main location, two other very simple locations. Four actors, a few extras.
ABOUT THE WRITER: James Austin McCormick is a college lecturer and compulsive writer of speculative fiction with many short stories published in various anthologies along with novellas and novels published with Class Act Books. As a screenwriter, James has consistently placed high in international competitions and, along with a co-author, has had three feature-length horror scripts optioned by K5 films. With a long list of short-length scripts, James also collaborated with talented writer, Annabel Grace, on the produced short, In the Silence. You can find his works on the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. James can be reached at: jimbostories (a) hotmail.
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About the Reviewer: Michael J. Kospiah is the award-winning screenwriter of critically acclaimed indie-thriller, The Suicide Theory (79% Rotten Tomatoes – available on Amazon Prime, Itunes, Google Play, etc) and 2020’s upcoming Aussie thriller, Rage. His horror feature, They Never Left is currently in development.
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