Paradise Ikagawa Theatre is a run-down strip club in Ikagawa where a tight-knit, underfunded crew scrapes by on late nights and small tips. The core lineup centers on Lena Jodo, a sharp-eyed fortune-teller who reads the room as easily as the room reads her; Nene, a bright-spirited dancer who brings energy to every beat; Maria, a highly intelligent, red-headed gothic bookworm with a troubled, self-mutilation-tinged sensibility; Darna, who is quietly scrimping to send money back to her siblings; and Ginko, a wary, capable performer who keeps her guard up. The group is rounded out by the imposing, enigmatic figure known as Blue Ogre. Together, they navigate the theater’s dwindling crowds, unpaid bills, and the strange, occasional demand from the outside world.
Lena’s world-weary narration opens a window into how she ended up here: after a return trip from Mexico, cash strapped and looking for any opportunity, she gets drunk and ends up with a homeless man, steals his umbrella in a haze of regret, and sets off a chain of consequences she is reluctant to face again. The next morning brings a blunt reality check when a deadbeat Ikagawa Promotions manager named Manjiro phones Lena with bad news: Ginko has been arrested, and there’s a ten-day dance slot that needs to be filled fast. Lena, though exhausted and wary, reluctantly agrees to take the gig, hoping it will buy some breathing room for the troupe.
To get the money rolling, Lena meets Yudai, a club employee, who drops a rumor that a spa resort next to the theater once drew a family tragedy into its wake when a resort plan collapsed. He also hints that the theater will shut its doors soon unless they can pull off this new engagement. After a tense negotiation where Manjiro tries to dodge payment, he finally agrees to fund the lineup for the spa show, as long as the troupe can deliver a spectacle that appeases a discerning crowd.
At the spa resort, the workers reveal a troubling rule: sex trade workers must come through the back door. Ginko insists they are dancers, not prostitutes, and the troupe performs for a wealthy spa attendee who pushes for an odd challenge—a staged sumo-style bout between Lena and Ginko. Lena emerges victorious, collecting a cash prize, while Ginko is coerced into becoming the club’s “human sushi bar” for the guest’s entertainment. In a cloud of liquor and reckless impulse, Lena ends up sleeping with the lead spa attendee, a choice that deepens the group’s tensions and feeds a growing rift between the two friends.
Ginko’s frustration with Lena’s pattern of getting drunk and chasing men boils over into a physical confrontation. Shirts rip, boxes topple, and the dressing room becomes a chaotic space of anger and lingering resentment. While the mess is being cleaned, Maria discovers a door leading to an underground cellar. There, the troupe uncovers a stash of occult books and a sealed-off well called the Well of Spirits. Darna uncovers money hidden away, and Maria unearths a medieval Book of the Dead. Maria contemplates using the book to perform necromancy, and she chants several spells, though initial results are inconclusive and the other girls leave the basement disappointed.
Back upstairs, an astonishing turn occurs: the spell appears to have worked in a way no one anticipated. All manner of deceased life—ranging from creatures to inanimate foods like raw fish and sushi—begins to rise from the dead and terrorize Ikagawa. The threat is immediate and personal when Darna discovers a zombie lurking beneath the cash pile; she is attacked and torn apart, a brutal reminder of the danger now spreading through the town.
As the situation escalates, the troupe learns that the dead are translating into a coordinated, threatening presence rather than mindless frenzy. A large crowd of zombies victimizes the area around the theatre while Yudai is killed, and Nene is bitten; she manages to escape with Maria, Ginko and Lena in the chaos. The zombies spill from the Well of Spirits and surge across Japan with astonishing speed, a fact reporters struggle to describe as they are swiftly consumed by the advancing tide.
What makes these zombies unsettling is that they still retain elements of their former intelligence and memory, even as they operate as a powerful collective. The trio behind the scenes—Ginko, Lena, and Maria—each confronts personal stakes as the outbreak widens its reach. In the dressing room, Maria betrays her friends and slips away, leaving Lena, Nene, and Ginko to improvise their own escape in a battered Ikagawa Paradise Theatre van. The vehicle is wrecked when it collides with an elderly pedestrian, forcing the group to improvise a new path through the expanding crisis.
Meanwhile, Maria returns to the abandoned spa basement, where she discovers the mutilated remains of Darna. The zombies reassemble and close in on her, driven by hunger and instinct. To survive, Maria tries to placate them with flashing jewelry and candy, a desperate bluff that fails. With the odds closing in, she turns to the Book of the Dead, chanting another spell in a bid to harness the looming undead threat and bend it to her will.
This is a story that threads together desperation, superstition, and a city-wide calamity, weaving a volatile tapestry of friendships tested by fear, greed, and the unnatural. The film blends dark humor with brutal horror as the characters confront a nightmarish truth: the wellspring of life and death can be unlocked—and unleashed—by curiosity, money, and the willingness to stare into the Abyss. The survivors must navigate a world where the dead refuse to stay quiet, the living must choose whether to fight or flee, and the past they hoped to escape keeps returning with a hunger that cannot be ignored.
