Description
Terry Hawkins has just been released from prison after spending a year incarcerated for drug charges. An amateur filmmaker, Terry claims to have previously made stag films that he was unable to sell. Convinced that modern audiences crave more extreme content, Terry decides to make a real snuff film. After choosing a large abandoned college as the setting of his film, Terry secures financing from an unsuspecting film company run by an openly gay film executive named Steve Randall. Terry rounds up a group of disparate women and men— some of them amateur filmmakers— who are willing to help make his film. Among them are filmmaker Bill Drexel; untrained actresses Kathy and her friend Patricia; and Ken, one of Terry's longtime acquaintances and a former pornographic actor.
For their first scene, Patricia and Kathy, wearing translucent plastic masks, lure a blind transient to the building. The women fondle him before Terry, donning a Greek tragedy-like mask, strangles the man to death while Bill films the murder. Meanwhile, pornographic director Jim Palmer, a peer of Steve's, waits anxiously for a party he is attending to end; his wife Nancy, done up in blackface, is whipped repeatedly in front of party guests as part of a sex game. Jim complains to Steve that people's tastes are becoming "hard to satisfy." The next day, Terry arrives at Jim and Nancy's home, and finds Nancy alone. He introduces himself as a mutual friend of Ken, with whom Nancy has previously appeared in adult films. Terry quickly seduces Nancy before showing her the footage of the blind man's murder in an attempt to convince her to ask Jim if he will invest in the picture. She is shocked by how realistic the footage looks; Terry confesses that it is in fact real, and rapes her.
The following morning, Terry calls Steve and asks him to stop by the building to visit the film set; he also inquires about a young actress named Suzie Knowles for a part in his movie. Steve arrives later that night, and is confronted by Terry and his crew inside the building, all of them wearing masks. Steve is knocked unconscious, and awakens to find himself tied up alongside Nancy and Suzie. Terry and his crew brand Suzie across her chest with a hot iron before Terry slashes her throat. Later, Terry goes to meet Jim at his office and kidnaps him. Back at the building, Terry and his crew beat Jim to death while Bill again films the crime. They then take an unconscious Nancy and tie her to a large dining table. She awakens to Bill filming her, while Terry uses a hacksaw to dismember her legs before they eviscerate her with gardening shears. During the mutilation, they periodically revive her consciousness with the aid of smelling salts before she bleeds to death.
Terry and his crew confront Steve with the corpse of the blind transient they killed earlier, and welcome him "back to the edge." Steve flees through the building, and is confronted in the basement by Terry, who tackles him to the ground. Bill emerges from a dark corridor with his camera while Kathy and Patricia taunt Steve. Patricia removes her mask and takes off her blouse, exposing her breasts. She unbuttons her pants, revealing a dismembered goat hoof she has held between her legs. As the group taunt Steve, Terry forces him to fellate the goat hoof. Steve escapes, but is cornered in an empty room, where a row of spotlights suddenly light up. Terry and his crew, armed with a power drill, approach Steve, plunging the drill bit through his eye socket, killing him. One by one, they slowly back away from Steve's body and disappear into the darkness.
As the scene fades out, a voiceover states that Terry, Bill, Ken, Patricia, and Kathy were apprehended and are in a state penitentiary.
