Jude, Luke, Marc, Paulie, and Pete are liberal-minded roommates and grad students at a Iowa post-secondary institution. Every Sunday for the past year, they have hosted a dinner party, inviting a friend over to have an open-minded discussion about whatever topics are of interest. On a dark and stormy night when Pete was supposed to bring a friend to one of those dinners, he instead comes home with Zachary Cody, who rescued a stranded Pete when his car broke down. They invite Zach to stay for dinner instead of Pete's missing friend. They soon find out that Zach is, among other things, a racist neo-Nazi, which brings up a potentially dangerous situation for Jewish Marc and Black Luke. After some physical altercations and verbal threats, Marc ends up stabbing Zach dead out of what he considers self-defense. As the friends discuss what to do about Zach, they finally come to the conclusion that in killing Zach, they have done society a service. So they ponder: "why not invite other ultra-conservatives with extreme views to dinner to do the same to them"? Several dinner parties and deaths later, they think they've hit the jackpot when they meet powerful ultra-conservative broadcaster Norman Arbuthnot and invite him to dinner. But their plans unravel wen they can't agree on who deserves to die; and they're also threatened by Sheriff Alice Stanley, who isn't looking for the five's victims, but is nevertheless nosing around as she works on a missing-girl case.