Spasmo

Late at night, a young couple discovers brutalized mannequin remains on the beach. A man loiters nearby and flees in his car before they can question him. The unsettling scene launches a web of secrets that will pull Christian into Barbara's world.

Christian returns to the beach and checks on a woman lying in the sand who introduces herself as Barbara. She leaves abruptly, forgetting her flask, which Christian notices and uses the inscription to track her down. This moment begins his fixation on her.

They attend a party aboard a boat at the local marina, and Barbara invites Christian back to her motel. Their drive takes them through a wooded area where lingerie-clad mannequins hang, foreshadowing danger and desire.

Christian shares a troubling childhood incident with his father, while Barbara explains that her relationship with Alex is more about provision than love. She then bizarrely asks him to shave his beard before they have sex, and he complies. The moment marks the start of their tense dynamic.

As Christian shaves, a noise outside draws him to the window. A man with a gun, Tatum, bursts in and threatens Christian. In a brief struggle, Christian shoots and kills Tatum in the bathroom.

Strangely at ease with the idea of a dead man in the room, Barbara convinces Christian that the best course is to run. They head to a friend's seaside castle and lighthouse for safety and sanctuary.

Squatters Malcolm and Clorinda interrupt, taunting Christian with a story about a local murder. Believing the tale concerns him, Christian admits he is the killer, but Malcolm reveals it was just a joke, leaving Christian confused and unsettled.

Clorinda hints that she knows Christian, and a possibly hallucinatory rape scene ensues. The next morning, Barbara is gone; Christian searches her motel room for clues and finds no body or weapon, expanding his paranoia as he heads to the marina.

Christian spends the day in the tower and grows increasingly unstable, briefly thinking he sees Tatum again. He later discovers Malcolm dead and glimpses an arm at the bottom of a well, solidifying his sense that a larger conspiracy surrounds him.

Christian travels to his ex-girlfriend's apartment only to be confronted by a very alive Tatum. Tatum explains the plan was to drive him mad, but the confrontation escalates into a brutal car chase at a quarry, where Christian kills Tatum by crashing the car and pushing the body off a cliff.

Barbara and Luca arrive to ensure Christian is dead, but Christian intercepts their plan. Barbara admits her feelings for Christian and their desire to escape, while Christian experiences unsettling visions of Clorinda and others as trust frays.

Fritz investigates the car crash and realizes the body isn't Christian's. He uncovers a family conspiracy and that insanity is hereditary, watching old family movies that reveal Clorinda as the nurse and Malcolm as the doctor. The revelation clarifies much of Christian's behavior.

Alex shoots Christian, mortally wounding him, but he stumbles back to the beach where he first met Barbara and dies. The truth behind the murders remains elusive to others as Christian's descent comes to a fatal end.

Fritz returns home to a closet full of lingerie-clad mannequins and, in a final act of rage, stabs a mannequin as a voice-over reiterates that insanity is hereditary. The film closes on a chilling note about inherited madness.