FADE IN:

EXT. THE SAME BASIC GENERIC SUBURBAN TOWN WHERE ALL THESE KIND OF MOVIES HAPPEN

Four TEENAGERS are hanging out without parental supervision, partaking of ALCOHOL and plotting SEXUAL INTERCOURSE and basically doing the slasher movie stuff that tells us we shouldn’t get too attached.

TEENAGE VICTIM #1

Hey, did you guys ever hear about the Blissfield Butcher? Apparently he went on some kind of deranged killing spree in 1977, and since then every year when homecoming rolls around he strikes again!

TEENAGE VICTIM #2

Pfft, what an absurd urban legend, no way that’s real! ...No really, if a town had a serial killer who gruesomely murdered a dozen teenagers every year like clockwork and the police were helpless to catch him, zero people would live there. This is obviously bullshit and-

VINCE VAUGHN shows up and starts MINCING THE TEENS in CARTOONISH, PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE FASHION!

VINCE VAUGHN

Wait, they’re saying my character has been murdering people since the seventies? I, Vince Vaughn, have been cast as a guy who’s like sixty-three or something? That’s fucking insulting.

(catches sight of own reflection)

...Yet depressingly plausible.

The last of the TEENS manages to slink unnoticed into some kind of weird SECRET COMPARTMENT in the back of a CLOSET.

TEENAGE VICTIM #1

Okay, now seems like the perfect opportunity to call the cops and-

(does not have phone)

Aw geez, is Hollywood still trying to pull that stupid trope in 2020, with a teenage character no less? Oh well no matter, I do appear to be completely concealed here, so to survive this I figure all I have to do is BURST OUT OF MY PERFECT HIDING PLACE LESS THAN ONE MINUTE LATER AND MAKE A BREAK FOR IT!!

She TRIES THIS only for VINCE to SEIZE HER and IMPALE HER on a random SPIKE sticking out of the wall. He then turns to LEAVE.

TEENAGE VICTIM #1

(gurgling blood)

Hey, w-wait... you forgot to... tortuously set up the premise of the movie...

VINCE VAUGHN

Oh right.

(sees mystical knife, does double take)

Why, what’s this? It seems that the house where I’ve begun my annual rampage HAPPENS to belong to a collector of ancient relics, who HAPPENS to have gotten this strange knife in the mail just today, and the teens HAPPEN to have opened that package and placed it in a prominent place for me to spot it! I should steal it and take it to my next murder, even though bringing my own weapon to a murder is completely against my M.O.!

(grabs knife)

There, was that contrived enough for you?

TEENAGE VICTIM #1

(gives thumbs-up)

(dies)

INT. HIGH SCHOOL

KATHRYN NEWTON goes to HIGH SCHOOL with her friends CELESTE O’CONNOR and MISHA OSHEROVICH.

CELESTE O’CONNOR

So Kathryn, excited for homecoming? We are, because somehow we’re completely unaware that it’s the local murder festival!

KATHRYN NEWTON

Sorry guys, I can’t go. My mom’s asked me to some lame play that night, and ever since my dad died I have to indulge her every whim to keep her... well, not "happy", as she’s an emotional wreck... and not "functional" either, as she’s become a completely unreliable drunk... actually my constant support seems to do my mother no good whatsoever, but hey, it lets me show off my fatal flaw of "letting everybody shit all over me".

MELISSA COLLAZO

(sashaying up)

Speaking of which, hi there, I’m your basic popular bully-bitch stereotype. Hey everybody, check out Kathryn’s inexpensive clothes and slightly mussed hair, ha ha!

EZRA SEXTON

Meanwhile, we jocks will loudly scoff at your unattractiveness, as though a dorky cardigan would stop horny teenage boys from noticing you look like Kathryn Newton!

KATHRYN NEWTON

Ah, we’re doing that thing, are we? Where we establish a handful of characters as cartoonishly horrible enough that we can gut them like fishes and still hold on to our "fun comedy" tone?

ALAN RUCK

SHUT UP KATHRYN, WHILE I PUBLICLY HUMILIATE YOU FOR BEING ONE MINUTE LATE FOR CLASS!!

KATHRYN NEWTON

Cool cool, can’t wait to see what random improvised implements Vince uses to remove all your faces.

URIAH SHELTON

Meanwhile there’s me, your crush, seemingly by virtue of being the only straight male character who doesn’t treat you like total garbage! And here’s a pretty Chekhov’s gun-ish life hack for you: to avoid being late in future, you should set your watch five minutes ahead!

KATHRYN NEWTON

Good idea!

(goes to wind watch)

(remembers that it is 2020)

(looks up YouTube tutorial on how the fuck you change the time on a smartwatch)

Then an ANNOUNCEMENT IS MADE over the PA SYSTEM about the FOUR DEAD TEENS from the OPENING SEQUENCE.

KATHRYN NEWTON

Holy shit! Four students brutally dismembered, and the killer is still at large! They should probably send everybody home after news like that, right? At the very least I assume they’ll be cancelling the big football game tonight.

URIAH SHELTON

Actually nothing’s going to happen. They just seem to be mentioning it, like they would with a change to the cafeteria menu.

KATHRYN NEWTON

Eh, I suppose in this town if they closed the school over every little teen massacre, nothing would ever get done.

EXT. FOOTBALL STADIUM

After the FOOTBALL GAME that night, KATHRYN is waiting for her MOTHER to pick her up.

MISHA OSHEROVICH

Sure we couldn’t give you a lift instead, Kathryn? You know, because in five minutes this place will be deserted, and you’ll be alone and vulnerable in the middle of nowhere at ten thirty at night while there’s a crazed murderer on the loose?

KATHRYN NEWTON

No, I mustn’t cancel any plan I have with my mother, no matter how mundane, or routine, or inconvenient for her that plan may be! If I call Mom and tell her I arranged a different five-minute drive home she’ll probably kill herself!!

The others LEAVE, but then KATHRYN’S MOTHER is PASSED OUT DRUNK AT HOME and DOESN’T SHOW. Then as midnight approaches, VINCE arrives, wielding the MYSTERY KNIFE!

VINCE VAUGHN

Bwa ha ha, here I am, coming to a completely empty sports stadium at midnight in search of teenagers to slay! What a weird strategy, I’m shocked it actually worked.

He chases KATHRYN down and stabs her in the SHOULDER. But then an identical WOUND magically appears in his OWN SHOULDER!

VINCE VAUGHN

YOWCH! Huh, lucky for me this happens to be the one time I didn’t manage to pull off a one-shot instant kill I guess.

KATHRYN’S COP SISTER DANA DRORI shows up and chases VINCE off at gunpoint.

DANA DRORI

Don’t worry Kathryn, you’re safe now. Let’s get you to the hospital to treat your knife wound, get you to the police station to file a report on this attempted murder, and still somehow have you home in bed in like an hour.

INT. KATHRYN’S BEDROOM

The next morning, VINCE wakes up to find that he is now in KATHRYN’S BODY!

VINCE NEWTON

Huh. I did not anticipate this. I should probably have a reaction, let’s say...

(brow slightly furrows)

And maybe even...

(eyes widen by a fraction of a millimetre)

And that’s about it. What can I say, I guess this scenario makes perfect sense to the jar of angry bees I have for a brain.

(chuckles)

Hey, can you imagine if this had happened to the Silence of the Lambs guy? He would have been all, "Oh! Never mind then, mission accomplished."

He heads downstairs to find DANA there as well as KATHRYN’S MOTHER KATIE FINNERAN.

VINCE NEWTON

Oh look, functioning human bodies! I can fix that.

(grabs knife)

KATIE FINNERAN

(relieving him of knife)

No time for that now sweetie, you don’t want to be late getting to high school, where all the vulnerable teenagers are, with their intact skin and organs, and their blood currently inside of them.

VINCE NEWTON

You don’t say. He he ha. Ha HAAAA ha ha. Okay then, let’s go! But first I’ll sex this body up a bit, giving it a hot new outfit and hairdo and coat of makeup, using the makeover skills that it totally makes sense for me to have.

INT. OLD MILL

Meanwhile, KATHRYN wakes up in VINCE’S BLOATED OLD BODY.

KATHRYN VAUGHN

BWWUUHHHH??!?!!????!?? WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS AAAAHHHHHH BLUH WHA NNOOOO okay yes, this is a much more reasonable reaction. Anyway, shit! What do I do now? I guess I should use Vince’s phone to call somebody-

(still doing the no-phone thing)

Well fine, I can surely find a phone SOMEWHERE and contact like my mom or my sister or Celeste and Misha, convince them who I am and get their help.

(thinks)

OR, I could go to meet Celeste and Misha at the school. Yes, while in the body of a wanted murderer who’s the subject of an intense manhunt and whose description is plastered all over the news, I should just stroll into the high school. Just wander into the girl’s showers there, I can’t see how that could go wrong!

(pause)

Say, how the fuck has a girl as dumb as me made it this far into a slasher movie? Usually we’re the first to go.

INT. HIGH SCHOOL

VINCE enters the SCHOOL, where he is swooped upon by MELISSA.

MELISSA COLLAZO

Omigod, I heard about how you nearly got murdered, that’s super cool! I saw the police sketch of that butcher guy and YECCH. He totally looks like the type who was attractive for, like, a year and a half in the nineties, but has just been getting steadily more puffy and hungover-looking ever since, don’t you think? On an unrelated note, did you ever see Fred Claus? What a total monkey fart of a movie THAT was.

VINCE NEWTON

...Hey, how about coming with me to a part of the school that has fewer witnesses.

He lures her away to a place where there’s some kind of INSTANT-FREEZE CHAMBER and LOCKS HER INSIDE.

VINCE NEWTON

Mwa ha ha, you are now trapped in a walk-in chamber that can be used to flash-freeze a human being in seconds! What a sensible thing to be sitting around switched on and unattended at a school!

He FREEZE-DRIES MELISSA TO DEATH.

Elsewhere in the school, out of the ENTIRE BODY OF STUDENTS, KATHRYN is lucky enough to run straight into CELESTE and MISHA.

KATHRYN VAUGHN

Guys, relax, it’s Kathryn and I can prove it! Look, I’ll do my cheer routine, and our secret handshake, and recite my favorite movies and music and so forth. How would a stranger know all this?

CELESTE O’CONNOR

By stalking Kathryn for a couple of days and skimming her Instagram page.

KATHRYN VAUGHN

...Okay yes, I can see that from your perspective that’s a much more logical answer than "magical body swap". But come on guys, it’s a rule in body swap movies that the friends need ridiculously little convincing.

MISHA OSHEROVICH

True, I guess this part is really just a formality we need to get through. So, oh my God, it really is you, et cetera.

They do some perfunctory RESEARCH on the KNIFE.

CELESTE O’CONNOR

Okay, turns out it’s an ancient artifact called La Magufina, which was used in human sacrifices.

KATHRYN VAUGHN

Wait, what about the part where using the knife also wounds the wielder? Did this ritual require the priest to commit suicide?

CELESTE O’CONNOR

I guess so? But apparently if the sacrifice is not completed, the two people switch bodies, and if they don’t reverse it within twenty-four hours it becomes permanent!

KATHRYN VAUGHN

Why the fuck would that be part of it?! I’m having real trouble figuring out what purpose this magical knife was even designed to serve.

MISHA OSHEROVICH

The purpose of making the plot of this movie happen.

KATHRYN VAUGHN

Fair enough. Anyway, the deadline for reverse-stabbing Vince is twenty-four hours from the original stabbing, is it? In that case I’ll set an alarm for midnight, since Vince just happened to stab me at the exact stroke of midnight by total coincidence.

CELESTE O’CONNOR

All right, so we need to get that knife. That should be easy, it’s currently in evidence lockup at the police station where your sister works. You can just call your sister and convince her it’s you, right? It took you less than a minute to do the same with us.

KATHRYN VAUGHN

At no point will it occur to me to do that. Which, if you think about it, means the only thing the screenwriters accomplished by making my sister a cop was creating this plot hole.

(shrugs)

So yeah, let’s go to the police station, but first I gotta tinkle. And you know what that means!

MISHA OSHEROVICH

(sighs)

Another Hot Chick/Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle-esque scene where we act like it’s humorous that a teenage girl has been forced to handle a gross old dude’s dong?

KATHRYN VAUGHN

Har har, penises are hilarious!

MISHA OSHEROVICH

Let’s just hope nobody in the audience thinks about it too hard. Otherwise it might occur to them that while you’re here touching a smelly old homeless murderer’s junk, at some point that same smelly old homeless murderer is presumably going to have his own bathroom break where he may well come into contact with your-

KATHRYN VAUGHN

I WILL GIVE YOU A MILLION DOLLARS TO NOT FINISH THAT THOUGHT.

INT. SHOP CLASS

Elsewhere, VINCE finds ALAN in the SHOP ROOM.

ALAN RUCK

Well hello. Are you here to kill me because I did some more of my psychotic bullying on you?

VINCE NEWTON

Partly that. Mostly it pisses me off that here they are passing my character off as being in his mid-sixties like it ain’t no thing, meanwhile you’re ACTUALLY sixty-four and on TV they’re casting you as Kieran Culkin’s brother? I MEAN COME ON BRIAN COX WOULD’VE BEEN TEN YEARS OLD WHEN HE HAD YOU WHO DO THEY THINK THEY’RE KIDDING.

(snorts)

Anyway, look at all these power tools and blades and hammers and stuff! Seems like an ideal opportunity to attack you with MY SKINNY LITTLE CHILD ARMS!!

(pounds ineffectually on Alan with his tiny fists)

Wait, this body obeys the laws of physics? Oops, that’s not what I’m used to.

ALAN responds by beating the shit out of what he believes to be a SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD GIRL.

ALAN RUCK

(kicking Vince in the ribs)

Oho, you thought you could defeat Alan Ruck? Not today, missy!

VINCE NEWTON

...You seem disturbingly unsurprised that one of your students just tried to murder you.

ALAN RUCK

Eh, given my personality it’s probably a recurring problem for me.

VINCE NEWTON

True. Anyway:

(stabs Alan in neck)

(chops him in half)

There! Now, as with everybody I kill in this movie, let us never speak of this incident or that character again.

INT. CLOTHING STORE

While CELESTE and MISHA go looking for a DISGUISE for KATHRYN to wear, she hides out in the changing room of a discount clothing outlet. But then KATIE speaks to her through the door!

KATHRYN VAUGHN

Oh no, my mom! What were the chances of running into her here, in the store where she works?

KATIE FINNERAN

Do you need help, sir? Do you want me to give you any clothes advice, or maybe spill all my insecurities about my dead husband and grieving daughter even though you’re just some random voice I’ve been listening to for forty-five seconds?

KATHRYN VAUGHN

Oh, I’m sure your daughter will be fine. Right now she’s just having trouble figuring out WHO SHE IS, in time I’m sure she’ll BE HERSELF AGAIN - hey wait a fucking minute. Didn’t Christopher Landon also direct Happy Death Day, which ALSO contained a scene where the teenage girl talks with her alive parent about how she’s been dealing with the death of her dead parent, while explaining how the movie’s fantastical premise serves as a vague, tortured metaphor for her grief?

KATIE FINNERAN

Well you know, if it ain’t broke.

CELESTE and MISHA return with an incredibly crappy DISGUISE and they SKEDADDLE.

INT. ARCADE

VINCE is hanging with EZRA and some other JOCKS for some reason.

EZRA SEXTON

Man, it’s a shame they cancelled the homecoming dance. We should hold our own dance instead! Anybody know a good venue?

VINCE NEWTON

How about the old mill? You know, the filthy hovel in the middle of nowhere that’s full of used syringes and hobo urine?

EZRA SEXTON

Perfect!

VINCE sees URIAH pass by and decides to go MURDER HIM.

URIAH SHELTON

No fear, I’m not a piece of human trash so surely I have immunity, right? Some dumb coincidence will save me?

Sure enough, KATHRYN, CELESTE, and MISHA happen to show up at that location to save URIAH and capture VINCE.

KATHRYN VAUGHN

Don’t freak out Uriah, it’s me, Kathryn! Allow me to prove it by reciting a poem I left anonymously in your locker.

URIAH SHELTON

Actually, since it was an ANONYMOUS poem, all it should make me think is that my secret admirer has turned out to be an elderly serial killer.

KATHRYN VAUGHN

Look, it’s a rule in body swap movies-

URIAH SHELTON

I know, I know, I got the memo. Gasp it is you and so forth.

KATHRYN VAUGHN

Boy, this works every time. Yet even NOW I won’t try to call Dana, but will proceed with our terrible plan to send a teenager in to rob a police station.

CELESTE O’CONNOR

All right, let’s go do that. Misha, you stay and stand guard over Vince all by yourself. Instead of, say, shoving him in the trunk of our car so he’s right there ready to be stabbed as soon as we have the knife.

They go ahead with their STUPID PLAN.

INT. POLICE STATION

CELESTE bursts into the STATION and starts frantically creating a DIVERSION.

CELESTE O’CONNOR

OMIGOD YOU GOTTA HELP ME, THE BUTCHER IS OUTSIDE!! GO OUT AND LOOK FOR HIM!!! BUT, ER, DON’T LOOK TOO HARD OR YOU MIGHT FIND KATHRYN PARKED JUST A LITTLE WAY AWAY AND ARREST HER AND SCREW EVERYTHING UP. THIS IS HOW LITTLE WE HAVE THOUGHT ANY OF THIS THROUGH.

While the POLICE OFFICER is all DISTRACTED, CELESTE successfully steals the KNIFE! But then it turns out that VINCE has stolen DANA’S POLICE CAR and SPED OFF.

MISHA OSHEROVICH

Sorry guys, he got loose, and now he’s on the way to the homecoming dance to do all sorts of murders!

KATHRYN VAUGHN

Shit! I guess we should warn the cops then, so they can go prevent those murders? You know, the cops who are right there in the police station behind us?

CELESTE O’CONNOR

Nah.

KATHRYN VAUGHN

Oh. Will the cops find the place on their own by tracking the stolen cop car, at least?

CELESTE O’CONNOR

Nope! Nothing must stand in the way of the climactic gorefest!

INT. OLD MILL

VINCE is with EZRA at the MILL, which over the past couple of hours has been completely converted from a FILTHY SCRAP BARN into a COOL NIGHTCLUB.

EZRA SEXTON

Good turnout, huh? In fact I’d guess that every single kid in town has snuck out and broken curfew while a murderer is on the loose, which means that the whole town is presumably being turned upside down in a wild panic. Anyway, I hate you, you smug bitch. Wanna come make out with me?

VINCE NEWTON

Sure, come away from the crowd with me, let’s just slip away to this room here-

(finds several teens in room smoking pot)

Oops, not that one, let’s go to THIS deserted room instead-

(finds a couple having sex)

Shit. What about the bathroom?

(discovers guy puking his guts out)

Oh come on! Maybe this broom closet-

(another couple having sex)

FOR FUCK’S SAKE. What the hell made me think an unchaperoned homecoming dance would be a good place for sneaking off and doing secret murders?

Finally they wind up in a BARN.

EZRA SEXTON

And look, the other hateable jocks are here as well, this should speed things along!

VINCE uses a BROKEN BOTTLE to rip the JOCKS’ THROATS OUT, then picks up a nearby CHAINSAW, which of course has been left gassed-up and in working order inside this HOLLOWED-OUT RUIN OF A BUILDING.

EZRA SEXTON

OH SHIT, HE JUST KILLED MY FRIENDS, AND NOW HE’S PICKED UP A CHAINSAW! SHORTLY HE WILL TURN THAT CHAINSAW ON, OH NO!! IF ONLY THERE WERE SOMETHING A BIG ATHLETIC YOUTH SUCH AS MYSELF COULD DO ASIDE FROM STANDING HERE WHIMPERING AND WAITING TO GET-

(chopped into atoms)

But then KATHRYN, CELESTE, MISHA and URIAH all show up and manage to get VINCE pinned to the ground. KATHRYN goes to stab him with the KNIFE, but before she can do it her ALARM goes off!

KATHRYN VAUGHN

Oh no, it’s too late! I’m stuck! The end, we all lived miserably ever after, goodnight folks.

(pause)

PSYCH, obviously! Actually it turns out my alarm went off early because I set my watch five minutes ahead like Uriah suggested! I see, so that brief pointless fakeout was why we had him give advice from 1952.

She STABS VINCE, and they SWITCH BACK.

KATHRYN NEWTON

Guys, it worked, I’m me again!

MISHA OSHEROVICH

Your say-so is good enough for us, even though the original swap took hours and as far as we know you could just be Vince getting all deceptive for the fiftieth time this movie. SUDDENLY-ARRIVING COPS, SHOOT VINCE VAUGHN!

VINCE gets SHOT OVER AND OVER and then hauled off in a BODY BAG AMBULANCE, wait really? Damn, so I guess we can see where THIS is going.

INT. KATHRYN’S HOUSE

KATHRYN, KATIE, and DANA are all back HOME.

KATIE FINNERAN

And guess what, my grief and alcoholism are cured now I guess!

KATHRYN NEWTON

Hurray, everything has been satisfyingly resolved and-

VINCE bursts in and starts FIGHTING THEM! He incapacitates KATIE and DANA without KILLING THEM, which is WILDLY OUT OF CHARACTER FOR HIM.

VINCE VAUGHN

Speaking of out of character, now that I have you at my mercy, Kathryn, I will not simply find some random household item to instantly jam into your brain, but instead launch into a long, drawn-out monologue that gives you ample time to-

KATHRYN counter-attacks with a kick to the NUTS. She then grabs a dull piece of TIMBER.

VINCE VAUGHN

Pfft, nice try, but we’ve well established that your feeble little teenage body doesn’t have the strength to-

KATHRYN karate-kicks the TIMBER ALL THE WAY THROUGH HIS STERNUM and he DIES.

KATHRYN NEWTON

Okay. NOW we live happily ever after.

(pause)

I just hope the cops buy that I actually did stab the bullet-riddled old man in the back in self-defense.

DANA DRORI

Don’t worry, you’ll be fine! ...Although all the murder victims of the past few days have been known enemies of yours. And you were the last one seen with most of them alive. And your fingerprints are on, like, every single murder weapon.

(pause)

Yeah, you’re fucked.

Having successfully pulled off SLASHER GROUNDHOG DAY and SLASHER FREAKY FRIDAY, CHRISTOPHER LANDON starts writing treatments for SLASHER TEEN WOLF and SLASHER SPACE JAM and SLASHER BACK TO THE FUTURE and SLASHER BIG and SLASHER PLANES TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES and SLASHER TRADING PLACES and you know what this list started as a joke but some of these could work, COULD YOU GET ON IT PLEASE CHRIS

END.