The Happy Homicide

Being on trial for murder is awkward enough, but it becomes positively uncomfortable when the principal witness is the corpse. John Bork faces the charge of killing his wife, Fannie, in a courtroom where ordinary testimony has been replaced by extraordinary technology. The prosecution brings out a towering machine capable of stimulating recordings in the dead woman’s brain, hoping she will identify her killer herself.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, Fannie’s memories are less than straightforward. As the machine searches through the moments surrounding her death, she calls out a bewildering procession of names, while John offers dry explanations that raise more questions than they answer. With a judge struggling to maintain order, a prosecutor determined to prove his case, and evidence that is both scientifically advanced and outrageously unreliable, the trial turns into a sharp, playful send-up of murder mysteries, courtroom procedure, and futuristic ideas about memory. Expect witty dialogue, deadpan absurdity, and a very unconventional witness stand.