The film opens in 1977 Michigan on a run-down farmhouse where a man shouts for a young woman to run as he is attacked inside. She escapes into the surrounding woods, hides briefly, and discovers a body hung from a tree before fleeing in terror. Soon after, a disheveled man corners her and forces her head into a bear trap, blood splattering across his face and sealing a brutal first image that lingers.
Jumping ahead to 1984 in Broomfield, Adrienne [Kendra Leigh Timmins] is packing for a weekend with friends after the Spring Ball. She shares a close bond with her father, who is still coping with the loss of Adrienne’s mother and the disappearance of her sister, and he drops her off at the dance with warmth and a touch of worry. At school, Adrienne grows closer to her best friend Jamie [Elise Gatien], and they chat about Adrienne’s crush on Sean [Justin Kelly]. The mood shifts as Wesley [Stephan James], Tobe [Jesse Camacho], and Sean sneak into and hotwire a school bus, while the vice principal, Mr. Cunningham [Rick Rosenthal], oversees Marilyn [Eve Harlow] being escorted out of the dance for inappropriate attire.
Wesley, Tobe, and Sean manage to start the bus and eagerly pick up Adrienne, Jamie, Heather [Lanie McAuley], Heather’s loud boyfriend Johnnie [Alexander Calvert], and Marilyn, then speed off just as the principal regroups outside. The bus soon runs dry, and the group quarrels about what to do next. Adrienne, Marilyn, and Jamie slip into the woods to change, while a heavy-breathing stranger watches from the shadows. Heather reveals she has brought her dog Precious along, much to Johnnie’s annoyance.
Johnnie tries to press Tobe into finding gas, and Marilyn volunteers to go with him. The two bond as they walk and smoke until they reach a mailbox marked with the name “Joad” and a path leading back to the house from the film’s opening. They return to the others, and the group decides to head to the old farm. Meanwhile, the vice principal visits Adrienne’s home and tells her father that Adrienne was with the group, prompting a plan to search for them.
The friends reach the old farm and split into smaller teams to search for anything useful. In a tense moment, Johnnie and Heather stumble upon a shrine made from human bones. Heather screams, and the others rush to their aid, leaving Tobe alone in the barn where he is attacked. Wesley studies the shrine and realizes he’s been warned about the Joad family, who turned feral and cannibalistic on their land. Adrienne recognizes a necklace on the shrine that belonged to her sister, heightening the sense that the family’s past is closer than they thought. The group notices Tobe is missing and unites to locate him and return to the bus.
They soon discover Tobe hanging from the barn door with barbwire, and Adrienne rushes to help him as the killer steps out and stabs her in the gut with a pickaxe, killing her. The killer drags Adrienne’s body away and begins to butcher and eat her flesh, forcing the group to retreat to the farmhouse and barricade themselves inside. As Sean, Marilyn, and Jamie search the basement, they find Adrienne’s remains and are attacked by the killer; Sean fights to defend them but is killed with a garden tool.
The survivors flee the house for the barn, where they find Tobe still barely alive. He pleads to be put out of his misery, but the killer arrives and the group disperses. The killer alternatively pursues Jamie, who is knocked into a bear trap as he closes in; the scene cuts to black with the screen reading “REEL MISSING.”
The movie resumes with the killer, dazed and savoring the taste of his own blood, stumbling through the woods and letting out a primal scream. Inside the house, Wesley and Marilyn check the windows when the killer shatters a window and yanks Wesley through the glass, killing him instantly. Johnnie and Heather hastily search the barn for shelter, finding a badly injured Tobe and hiding inside an old car covered by a tarp. Heather’s dog begins to whine as the tense moment escalates; Johnnie insists on quiet, and Heather cruelly breaks the dog’s neck, a brutal moment that foreshadows their own fate as the killer stabs Heather in the back with a pitchfork, sending Johnnie scrambling as he is crushed trying to escape beneath the car.
On the road, Mr. Cunningham finds the battered bus and drives toward the farm as the last two survivors, Marilyn and Jamie, collide in a tense moment. The killer arrives and forces Jamie to retreat inside the house, where Mr. Cunningham declares he survived Vietnam and will defend them to the end. Inside, Jamie hears fighting; the door bursts open and the killer flings the vice principal’s head into the room, an awful reminder of the violence that plagues the place. Jamie escapes through a window, climbs into Mr. Cunningham’s damaged car, and searches for a weapon, only to find a full gas can. She runs back to the bus to escape but discovers the keys are missing, trapping her in a desperate standoff.
Adrienne’s father arrives and Jamie fights back, pushing the killer from the bus as the father shoots him dead. Police soon arrive; the Sheriff [Rick Rosenthal] inspects the killer’s body and explains to another officer that the Joad family terrorized the area for years, with countless victims until the entire clan was wiped out in a shootout with the police. He reveals that the killer was Junior [Mark Wiebe], the family’s youngest son. Just down the road, Jamie is being transported to the hospital when the ambulance meets a coroner’s van crashed on the roadside, the dead driver slumped at the wheel, signaling that Junior might still be alive. Jamie’s scream fades as the screen goes to black, leaving the fate of the surviving girl—and the lingering threat—unresolved.
