On Valentine’s Day at a lovers’ lane, Dee-Dee (Diedre Kilgore) and Jimmy (Carter Roy) share a moment in their car, only to be attacked by Ray Hennessey, a man with a steel hook who becomes infamous as “The Hook.” They manage to escape and discover Harriet and Ward slaughtered in the car next to theirs. Dr. Jack Grefe (Richard Sanders) arrives with Sheriff Tom Anderson (Matt Riedy). Ray, once a patient of Jack who fixated on Harriet, is captured and confined to a state institution, earning the chilling nickname that will haunt the town.
Thirteen years pass, and Jack is summoned when his daughter Chloe Grefe (Sarah Lancaster) exhibits troubling behavior at school. Chloe is suspended, while her boyfriend Michael Lamson (Riley Smith) is grounded by his mother. The Hook has escaped and is once again on the hunt, raising the tension in a community that has not forgotten the violence of that earlier night.
That evening, Michael slips out to join his friends, including Chloe and Mandy Anderson (Erin J. Dean); Jannelle Bay (Anna Faris) the cheerleader; Bradley (Ben Indra); and Doug (Billy O'Sullivan) along with Cathy (Megan Hunt) and Tim, as they head to a bowling alley for a night that quickly spirals into a deadly game of survival. Deputy David Schwick is present, keeping an uneasy watch over Chloe and Mandy, while the killer’s shadow looms large over the group.
The night unravels with a string of brutal discoveries. Bradley and Chloe are found murdered by the time the others reach the lanes, and the Hook slashes Tim in a brutal assault as the group scrambles for an escape. A crash early on leaves several of them unconscious, and when they awaken, Mandy and Michael realize the others have vanished. They flee to a nearby farmhouse, arming themselves with a gun and regrouping with the injured Doug while Jannelle tends to him. The Hook’s ransacking force moves through the building as Jannelle tries to barricade herself in a room, but the killer breaches the door and ends her life. Doug is killed as well, and Michael and Mandy, now in a desperate fight for survival, manage to start the owners’ car and flee, only to crash and be forced back inside.
Back at the farmhouse, the tense escape continues as the lovers race to safety. They light a gas-filled room, triggering a moment of peril that ends in a flash of flame when a match is struck and the house explodes. Tom and Penny rush to Jack’s house and discover a shrine devoted to Mandy, then race to Lovers Lane. Michael and Mandy steal away in the owners’ car, intending to head into town, and along the way they discover Chloe alive and Bradley alive as well, though the latter’s fate becomes tangled in the night’s final twists. Mandy decides to separate from Michael and Chloe, and as she searches for safety, she discovers that Bradley is dead, while Chloe attacks Michael with her hook in a fit of anger and vengeance before she is fatally knocked down by Michael’s quick reflexes.
The true danger surfaces when Jack reappears, revealing himself as Harriet’s killer and claiming to have survived the farmhouse explosion. Michael intervenes to rescue Mandy, and a confrontation erupts that ends with Tom and Penny shooting Jack, who is finally killed by Mandy with his own hook. The dawn after the carnage finds the trio, battered but alive, at Lovers Lane, where they undergo medical checks before stepping into a police car. The vehicle’s license to pursue justice is given a grim final twist: the car is revealed to be driven by Ray, still known as “The Hook,” leaving the town with its wounds and the sense that the nightmare could begin anew.