AXE

Three mobsters—Steele, Lomax, and Billy—enter a hotel room and await Aubrey, a local man who owes them money. Aubrey arrives with his male lover shortly after, and Lomax shoves a burning cigar down his throat before beating him to death. Aubrey's lover leaps to his death from the 12th-floor window.

Afterward, Steele, Lomax, and Billy drive through the countryside. Billy is remorseful for their crime, while Steele and Lomax are indifferent. Steele and Lomax relentlessly terrorize a female clerk, tearing off her blouse before firing a gun above her head, which breaks a ketchup bottle on her during a stop at a grocery store.

The next day, the men seek lodging at a remote farmhouse where an impassive young woman, Lisa, lives a solitary existence with her disabled grandfather. She is notably evasive toward the men but agrees to let them spend the night when they claim Billy has fallen ill. When the police arrive searching for the men, Lomax and Steele threaten Lisa with a gun, and she wards the officers away, assuring them she has not seen the criminals. At dinner, Lisa serves the men a chicken she slaughtered that morning. While the men eat, Lisa attempts to cut herself in the upstairs bathroom but is interrupted by Billy, who knocks on the door.

Lomax attempts to rape Lisa while she sleeps, but she stops the assault by slashing his neck with a straight razor, killing him. She drags his body to the bathtub, dismembers it with a hatchet, and stuffs the body parts into a steamer trunk. The following morning, Billy helps her carry the trunk into the attic, unaware of its contents. When he discovers blood dripping out of it, he opens the lid to find Lomax's body inside. Lisa lies and claims that Steele killed him.

Billy and Lisa go into the woods to talk about the incident away from Steele. She calmly unveils a straight razor, but Billy takes it from her hand, presuming she passed it over to him to arm himself against Steele. Upon returning to the house, Lisa makes Steele a sandwich in the kitchen. He comments on her physical beauty, to which she does not respond, which enrages him. Steele drags Lisa upstairs to the parlor, where her grandfather is watching television, and the two of them scuffle. She manages to grab a hatchet near the fireplace and kills him with it.

When Billy returns, he finds Steele missing; Lisa claims he was gone when she returned. Lisa prepares tomato soup for Billy and her grandfather in the upstairs parlor. While eating the soup, Billy finds Steele's ring inside his bowl and watches in horror as Steele's body dislodges from the chimney flue and tumbles out of the fireplace. Lisa pays no attention and quietly hums as she feeds her grandfather. Billy flees in horror and runs outside, where he is shot to death by the police.

Lisa kills two of the criminals who invaded her home, and the last, Billy, is shot dead by police as he flees the farmhouse in horror.

The ending delivers grim justice as Lisa, previously passive, becomes the agent of violent retribution against her abusers. The police's arrival brings an abrupt and brutal resolution, leaving Lisa emotionally untouched as she continues caring for her grandfather. The film closes on an unsettling note, blurring the line between victim and avenger in its bleak rural world.