Silent Night

Married couple Vidya and Marcus are on their way home from a family holiday, when a flat tire lands them in a night of trouble with a reclusive man and what’s locked in his shed.
(Copyright Office: 1-3248889479)

  • Christina Raia
    Writer
  • Project Type:
    Screenplay
  • Genres:
    Horror, Horror-Comedy
  • Number of Pages:
    70
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • First-time Screenwriter:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Slamdance Screenplay Competition

    September 16, 2016
    Quarter Finalist
Writer Biography - Christina Raia

Christina Raia is a New York City based Writer/Director. With an affinity for ensemble pieces and punchy dialogue, she focuses on character-driven and socially conscious horror and comedy, using genre as a lens to represent, discuss and dissect social issues, otherness and real world anxieties. Her mixed race background and particularly her mother's Indo-Trinidadian culture play a major role in Christina's interest in portraying underrepresented perspectives across diverse spectrums of identity in her work. She was a selected fellow in the Artist Academy of The Film Society of Lincoln Center as part of the 2018 New York Film Festival; and she won the Lois Weber Pioneer Award for her leadership in film at the 2019 Queens World Film Festival. Her latest horror short "The Gaze" was released by ALTER in 2020. Find Christina on social media: @craia9.

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Writer Statement

The inspiration for this script came from an odd encounter that my spouse and I had while we were driving on an empty road one Thanksgiving. Someone pointed at our tires and asked us to pull over, then drove away while our tires were totally fine. As a huge fan of the horror genre, I couldn't get the memory out of my head because it felt like a fun setup for a spooky movie. It took some time for me to figure out what direction I wanted to take the story in; but once I knew what the hook was (both in terms of the literal villain and its use as a metaphor for white feminism), the script poured out of me onto the page in one night. The first draft was a quarter finalist in the 2016 Slamdance Screenplay Competition. Since then, I've fine-tuned the script, finding just the right balance of levity and real emotional stakes. I think it will satisfy genre fans across the spectrum, from the ones who love their action and gore to the ones who love character-driven allegories. (The script is meant to function as a standalone feature, as well as a pilot for a limited series (which would conclude the day after Christmas). In either scenario, it'd be well-suited for something like Hulu's Into the Dark anthology.)