During the 1988 filming of the slasher movie Hot Blooded, the set is jolted when Scarman’s actor Brad [Frank Roberts] accidentally stabs the actress playing Chloe—the character Vanessa Turnbill [Molly Ringwald]—in the chest, drawing a sharp rebuke from director Hilary Jacobs [Kylie Minogue]. Brad, still in costume, confronts Hilary in her office; she fires him. Enraged, Brad dons the Scarman mask, slices off his pinky finger with his shears, and murders Hilary by cutting out her tongue. Vanessa rushes in and finds Hilary dead, and Brad attacks her, the two clashing over the shears. Vanessa’s personal assistant Lossman [Geoff Revell] arrives just as Vanessa seizes the shears and stabs Brad through the neck, ending his murderous threat.
Twelve years later, in 2000, Lossman is now a college professor who guides a group of aspiring filmmakers—Raffy Carruthers [Jessica Napier], Hester Ryan [Sarah Kants], Damien Ogle [Sam Lewis], Julie Bardot [Cathy Adamek], Rick Stephens [Stephen Curry], Jim Pilonski [Steve Greig], Cassie Woolf [Erika Walters], and Paulie Morrelli [Matthew Russell]—and he warns them not to finish Hot Blooded, because anyone who tries ends up murdered. Despite his caution, the group remains determined to complete the project. They reach out to Vanessa Turnbill, now a golf player, through her manager Paul Blackwell, and she agrees to return to Australia to finish the film. Vanessa Turnbill’s involvement promises a bridge between the original production and a new ending, a chance to honor Hilary’s memory while confronting the deadly history surrounding the movie.
With the needed rights and a copy of the film obtained from Martha [Phyllis Burford], an elderly woman connected to the original production, the crew makes plans to shoot at the mansion once owned by Mr. Drivett. Bobby Doog [Simon Bossell] joins the production to play Scarman, bringing an extra layer of intensity to the on-set dynamics. Before they begin, the group watches the recovered copy at a theater, and Raffy is subjected to a prank that makes her fear that everyone around her has already fallen victim to Scarman. The joke lands badly, and the tension reveals the deeper hostility among the crew. Later that night, the real Scarman appears at the theatre and disembowels the Archives Projectionist [Tiriel Mora], confirming that the film’s old danger has become new.
Police detectives Hollander and Carter investigate the murder scene and begin to connect the dots back to the earlier killings surrounding Hot Blooded, linking past tragedy to the current effort to resurrect the movie. As the crew prepares to film at the mansion, Scarman lurks about, and Bobby starts behaving oddly in his Scarman costume. In the mansion’s kitchen, Paulie Morrelli [Matthew Russell] and Cassie Woolf [Erika Walters] sneak off for a secret tryst, but Scarman arrives, decapitating Paulie with a cleaver. Cassie fights back with plates and a pan, but Scarman strikes again, slashing her arm and then throwing the cleaver, which pins her to a door.
The next day, Hollander and Carter press Raffy and Hester for information about the theatre murder. Back at the motel, Raffy frets about Paulie and Cassie, while Hester reassures her that they are not alone in facing the threat. That night, the crew resumes shooting. Jim Pilonski is lured away to fetch supplies, but Scarman, who has insinuated himself into the group, corners him on a bus and kills him by slitting his throat after severing his arm. Vanessa rehearses her kill scene as the mother in the movie with Raffy, Damien Ogle, Julie Bardot, and Rick Stephens, while Bobby—still in costume as Scarman—turns violent with her, prompting a confrontation among the crew.
A growing sense of peril grips the group as Raffy discovers their cars’ tires have been slashed, a sign that someone is actively trying to stop them. Lossman confronts Raffy and admits that she is Hilary’s daughter, and that finishing the movie could be a way to honor her mother’s memory. The tension escalates as more crew members vanish or are attacked: Damien is killed when Scarman stabs him through the eye with his shears, and Julie escapes a fiery death in a car that Scarman later sets ablaze after dousing it with gasoline. The car explodes, severing another thread of their fragile safety.
In a shocking sequence, Vanessa and Raffy locate Drivett’s office and discover him dead, tied upside down and disemboweled. Martha suffers a fatal stroke at the sight, and Lossman frantically tries to salvage the situation. Scarman murders Lossman by driving a stake through his throat, then chases Vanessa as Raffy seizes the opportunity to burn the movie copies. Vanessa distracts the killer, drawing him away while Raffy drags the film reels to safety, but Scarman nearly overpowers her in the old director’s room where the opening of Hot Blooded originally began.
The arrival of Hollander triggers a final, brutal confrontation: Hollander shoots Scarman multiple times, but the creature remains, finally decapitating Hollander with the deadly shears. Carter arrives to rescue Hollander, but Scarman attacks her and drives her to the outdoor water faucet, where she is fatally impaled. Vanessa, now awake, fights back as Raffy continues to destroy the film reels in a desperate bid to end the nightmare. Scarman’s face begins to melt as Raffy torches more of the copies, and Lossman—who has somehow survived—throws the remaining reels into the flames. Scarman collapses into a slimy, melted heap beside Raffy, who sobs as Lossman recovers.
In a quiet denouement at the hospital, Lossman and Vanessa reveal that Scarman is truly dead, and Raffy absorbs the weight of their experience. Yet the cycle of menace appears to have another life: in New York, a college professor shows a damaged copy of Hot Blooded to her class, and as the reel malfunctions, Scarman sits behind the professor in the theater row and slits her head, a grim reminder that some films—and some legends—refuse to die.
