Bereavement

Martin Bristol, a boy with congenital analgesia, is abducted by Graham Sutter at an abandoned slaughterhouse. Graham cuts Martin's cheek in front of a captive young woman and brutally murders her. Martin struggles to escape but is recaptured and bound to the slaughterhouse.

Over the next five years, Graham brutalizes and murders several young women while forcing Martin to watch. The repeated violence desensitizes Martin and cements Graham's control over him. The slaughterhouse becomes a chamber of horror that shapes both their fates.

Graham speaks to the hanging bull skull on the wall, treating it as a deity and a confidant. He seems to project his guilt and trauma onto these rituals, justifying the killings. The skull becomes a fixture of power and madness in the house.

It is implied Graham suffered abuse from his father and eventually murdered him, keeping the corpse under a sheet in the attic. This backstory hints at the roots of his violence and his detachment from normal empathy. The attic scene reveals the weight of family trauma as a driving force.

After the death of her parents, Allison Miller moves in with her paternal uncle Jonathan, aunt Karen, and cousin Wendy in Minersville. She enters a town where Graham's crimes have already cast a long shadow. The move sets up the new social landscape and looming danger.

While out for a run, Allison glimpses Martin through the slaughterhouse window and later meets William, a local boy she grows close to. The sight of Martin foreshadows the hidden danger in town. The budding relationship with William creates a contrast to the violence looming over them.

One night, Jonathan intervenes when Allison and William are about to have sex, signaling his protective instincts and willingness to confront danger. The moment underscores the fragile safety of Allison's new life. It also marks Jonathan's direct exposure to Graham's world.

The next day, Graham captures Allison at his farmhouse. Jonathan drives there to search for her but Graham shoots him dead. William, trying to help, arrives and is killed by Graham as the escalating violence spirals outward.

Allison manages a daring escape by forcing a metal rod through a door and unlocking it. She finds Martin's hand still pinned to the kitchen table, and she frees him as the two flee the building together. The trauma that has bound Martin intensifies as they leave the slaughterhouse.

Graham returns home, sets the Miller house on fire, and intends to use Wendy to replace Martin as his assistant. Allison confronts him and stabs Graham, causing him to flee. The immediate danger shifts from escape to a violent standoff in the burning home.

Allison attempts to call 911 but Martin stabs her to death, his mind now completely twisted by years of abuse. He then kills Wendy as the house burns around them. The murders seal Martin's transformation into a new kind of danger.

After the others are dead, Martin goes back to the ruined farmhouse and attacks the injured Graham with an axe. Graham thanks Martin before being hacked to death, in a bitter twist of fate. The killer is finally confronted by his own victim-turned-killer.

The next morning, authorities arrive at the still-smoldering ruins and rule the Miller house fire an accident. The case ends without a formal investigation, allowing the tragedy to fade into local legend. The community remains unaware of Martin's true transformation.

Martin begins to construct a new skeletal shrine in the farmhouse, with the bull skull as the head. He stares out the window, waiting for his next victim in a calm, terrifying stillness. The killer's ritualistic obsession appears to have found a new home.

In a post-credit scene set five years later, a girl named Courtney Harrison flees an unseen pursuer and discovers the farmhouse. She encounters Martin, now older and still haunted, who slowly turns toward her, leaving the ending ambiguous and chilling.