Malevolence

On May 14, 1989, six-year-old Martin Bristol is abducted. His face bears a disfiguring mark from his captor. He watches in horror as the captor murders a young woman in the basement of a farmhouse.

Ten years later, on September 20, 1999, Julian and his girlfriend Marylin plan and execute a bank heist with Max and Kurt, stealing around $500,000. Max is shot by a security guard and dies in the car with Julian and Marylin. Kurt leaves with the money in a separate car, but breaks down en route to the meeting at an abandoned house in the woods.

Kurt stops at a gas station to abduct Samantha Harrison and her teenage daughter Courtney, forcing them to drive toward the abandoned house in the woods. They are bound and gagged as Kurt tightens his grip on the plan to retrieve the money. The kidnapping begins the nightmarish sequence that will unfold at the house.

Upon arrival at the abandoned house, Kurt binds Samantha and Courtney and leaves a large portion of the money in the van. Courtney manages to free herself and flees to a nearby farm. Inside a derelict house on the property, he is clobbered with a metal pulley and stabbed to death by an unseen assailant.

After burying Max's body in a field, Julian and Marylin return to the abandoned house to meet Kurt and divide the money. They arrive at nightfall and find Samantha bound and sleeping, with Kurt nowhere to be found. The ominous stillness signals the danger closing in on the group.

While Marylin waits, a man wearing Kurt's sack mask descends the stairs and drags her into the dining room, stabbing her to death. Samantha and Julian realize the nightmare has escalated as the killer closes in. The violence leaves them trapped inside the house.

Julian, driving on back roads, attracts the attention of a parked police officer and hastens back to the house. He finds the entryway floor soaked in blood and Samantha hiding in a closet. Samantha tells him that Kurt returned to the house and killed Marylin.

Julian and Samantha head out on foot to search for Courtney and stumble onto the adjacent farm. There they find Courtney locked in an upstairs closet with Kurt's corpse. The discovery confirms Kurt's fate and deepens the mystery surrounding Martin Bristol.

The sack-masked killer ambushes the group, incapacitating Samantha and Courtney as Julian tries to intervene. Samantha later awakens in the basement, hanging from the ceiling, and uses a metal piping to free herself and escape with Courtney. The killer pursues them as they flee through the house.

Julian returns to the farm alone and discovers numerous corpses in varying states of decay, including Marylin posed among bones. The grim scene confirms the killer's disturbing methods and foreshadows Martin Bristol's current persona. The trio's flight has turned into a fight for survival.

The trio returns to the adjacent house to retrieve the van keys, only to confront the killer. Julian shoots him, but the killer survives long enough for a shocking reveal: the killer is Martin Bristol, now a scarred teenager. A police officer arrives as Samantha and Courtney escape, and Julian is fatally shot as he exits.

The following morning, investigators remove the bodies and uncover journals left by Martin's abductor. The journals reveal that Martin was groomed to kill in the exact manner he was taught and that his power grew with age. The discovery reframes the night as the birth of a calculating serial killer.

That evening, Samantha and Courtney lie down to sleep with a duffel bag of Kurt's money left in the van. The closet door behind them slowly opens, suggesting the killer's influence lingers and the danger is not over. The film ends on a tense, unresolved note.