Evil Ed

Sam Campbell, head of The Splatter & Gore Department, assigns Edward Tor Swenson to finish what the original editor started after the editor commits suicide. He grants Edward access to a private country cottage so he can work in peace. Edward travels to the cottage to begin reviewing the gore-filled footage for editing.

Over the course of a few days, Edward watches the graphic footage and edits relentlessly. The isolation and brutality begin to erode his grip on reality, making him increasingly jumpy and paranoid. The line between the footage and his own thoughts starts to blur.

One night, Edward dreams of a mental asylum patient urging him to kill others to 'correct the world'. The dream unsettles him and deepens his sense of looming danger. He wakes with the impression that unseen forces are judging his actions.

Nick, a young European Distributors employee, arrives to deliver more developed film. Edward is brusque and dismissive, reprimanding him as if he is to blame for delays. The tension hints at Edward's fragile grip on control.

Edward starts seeing demons and other creatures, including a gremlin in his refrigerator. The visions grow more vivid and intrusive, making him doubt what he is seeing and hearing. The cottage seems increasingly haunted as he edits.

Sam Campbell arrives to check on the progress, and Edward hallucinates that he is a white demon. In a panic, Edward snaps Sam's neck and Sam dies. The act seals Edward's descent into violent irrationality.

The next evening, Nick returns with more developed film. Edward attacks him, leaving Nick severely injured but alive. The assault marks a turning point as Edward's violence spills into the real world.

Two intruders break into the cottage and are killed by Edward's rampage. Worried for her husband, Barbara and their daughter visit, and Barbara shoots Edward in the shoulder to stop him. He is then carried away to safety as the danger becomes personal for the family.

Barbara's warning leads to Edward being taken to a psychiatric ward for treatment. Nick, who survived, is also taken to the same hospital. The break with reality continues into the medical facility as the danger continues to escalate.

In the mental ward, doctors sedate Edward, but he hallucinates that they are demons and attacks them. After escaping the ward, he kills a mental patient, prompting a security guard to summon a SWAT team.

Edward confronts Nick in his hospital room and abducts Nick's girlfriend Mel. He sedates Mel and places her on a hospital bed, turning the ward into a potential trap as a SWAT standoff unfolds.

A gun battle erupts between Edward and the SWAT team. He kills several officers and remains fixated on Mel as the danger peaks around the hospital bed. Edward ultimately impales Mel with hospital equipment during the chaos.

In the climactic confrontation, Nick shoots Edward's hand off with the SWAT captain's shotgun, then fires again to blow away his arm and finally his head. The rampage ends in a brutal, decisive takedown.

Nick approaches the bodies of Edward and Mel and reveals that the earlier killings were hallucinations; only Mel's death is real. A voiceover closes the film, suggesting the world will one day be a happy place, though the path there remains grim.