Amy Holden Jones

Amy Holden Jones is an American screenwriter and film director best known for directing The Slumber Party Massacre and for creating the FOX medical drama The Resident. She has edited various films and later began directing and writing. She currently works in television.

Early life and education Jones was born on September 17, 1953, and grew up in Florida. She lived in Buffalo, New York, during her high school years. She was interested in photography and wanted to study alongside Minor White who was teaching at MIT at the time. Jones attended Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, majoring in art history, so she could also take film studies courses at nearby MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Career

Editor (1976–1981) Jones broke onto the festival circuit when she won first place at the American Film Institute National Student Festival, where Martin Scorsese was a judge, for her short documentary film A Weekend Home (1975). A year later Jones was struggling to make ends meet living in Boston due to a lack of funding for documentaries. After she read an article about Martin Scorsese beginning to produce another film, she reached out and called him, asking "Do you remember this film? Would you advise me to move to New York?" Five days later he called her back and offered her a job as his assistant during the production of Taxi Driver. It was there that she met her husband cinematographer Michael Chapman. Martin Scorsese told Jones she was “too good to be an assistant” and got her in contact with film producer Roger Corman. She went on to work for Corman editing Joe Dante's first film, Hollywood Boulevard, when she was 22 years old. She edited American Boy: A Profile of Steven Prince for Scorsese, Corvette Summer for MGM, and Second-Hand Hearts for Hal Ashby.

The Slumber Party Massacre (1982–1983) After editing these films, Jones realized that she did not want to spend the rest of her life editing; she was frustrated with the fact that an editor can dramatically improve a film, however, it is not their film. Jones felt that she was being typed as a film editor. She was scheduled to edit Steven Spielberg's E.T. However, it was being continuously pushed back due to Poltergeist going over schedule. At this point she made a decision she has called crazy herself and decided to walk away from E.T to direct her own film.

The film was optioned by Samuel Goldwyn Jr. who held onto it for years claiming that his $5,000 option gave him the rights to it for the rest of her life. As she dealt with this situation she rewrote and directed Maid to Order. Eventually Samuel Goldwyn Jr. made Mystic Pizza with a male director, however, her writing in the film received high praise for its dialogue, and she began to receive offers as a screenwriter since at the time women were more often given opportunities to write films, not direct.

Television work Eventually Jones began being interesting in television and pitched a show titled The Seventeenth Floor to ABC, NBC, and CBS who all wanted to buy it, however, she ended up writing the script for CBS. Next, Jones wrote a pilot for the WB during its brand switch to the CW about Harvard Medical School, entitled HMS. Although it was shot, it did not get picked up, even in light of it reportedly testing higher than any other show CW had. After this she worked on the short lived show Black Box which was still early in her television career and as such, she admitted she still had a lot to learn. and New Amsterdam. In 2019, she signed a new overall deal with 20th Century Fox TV. Jonnie Davis, President of Creative Affairs, said about Jones, “She's brimming with ideas, and we're excited to have her continued services on our series as well as her development. She's an important voice.” Coming from her deal with 20th Century Fox, she would potentially work as co-writer and co-executive producer for a new crime drama at ABC. In May 2026, Jones publicly accused ABC of using the premise of a pilot she pitched to them and ordering it as a Texas-set Grey's Anatomy spin-off executive produced by Shonda Rhimes, without giving credit to her.

Filmography

Documentary appearances Calling the Shots (1988) Hollywood Women (1993) Headliners and Legends with Matt Lauer (2001) Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film (2006) Trailers from Hell (2007) Sleepless Nights: Revisiting the Slumber Party Massacre (2010)

Awards and nominations Jones established herself in the documentary scene by winning First Place at the AFI National Student Film Festival for her short documentary film A Weekend Home in 1975. Later on in her career, she would win the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Screenplay for Indecent Proposal in 1994. In 2019, Jones would win a Sentinel Award for The Resident Episode 220 “If Not Now, When?” alongside co-writers Tianna Majumdar-Langham and Chris Bessounian.

Bibliography and further reading

Allen, C. (Host). (2019, May 7). Amy Holden Jones, Screenwriter, Mystic Pizza, Beethoven, Indecent Proposal (No. 49) [Audio Podcast Episode]. In The Writer Experience. Flickering Myth. Broyles, Lindsey. “Female Authorship in the Slumber Party Massacre Trilogy,” BA diss., (University of New Mexico, 2016). Collum, Jason Paul. “SLEEPLESS NIGHTS: Revisiting The Slumber Party Massacre 'Don't Open the Door', Directed and Written by Jason Paul Collum (2010: Shout! Factory and B+BOY Productions) DVD. Maclay, Willow C. “Lined Lips and Spiked Bats: Amy Holden Jones and the Women of 'The Slumber Party Massacre',” Notebook, November 11, 2019. Newman, Kim. “The Slumber Party Massacre,” Monthly Film Bulletin, January 1, 1983.