Los Angeles outcast Henry Pinkle [Michael St. Gerard] is obsessed with television, and his world spirals when his favorite sitcom, The Robertson Family, is canceled. Planning to end his life by jumping from a bridge, he is approached by the mysterious Sam Bones [John P. Ryan], an elderly man who offers to jump with him before eventually talking him out of the act. Later, Sam inexplicably appears in Henry's living room, and tells him he will no longer be alone.
Wendy, Henry's social worker [Maureen Teefy], receives a videotape in which Henry informs her of his suicide, a tape he mailed before the botched attempt. Sam promises he can make Henry a star, and brings him to a television studio lot where Henry watches a faceless woman on a screen instruct him to follow his destiny. Sam gives Henry a plastic baby doll mask and a hatchet before sending him to make his debut at a suburban residence. He breaks into the home intending to murder the homeowner, but becomes transfixed by the television set and falters in his plan. Sam informs him that killing the homeowner will result in his sainthood, after which Henry returns to the house and hacks the owner to death with the hatchet.
Over the following month, a series of fifteen hatchet murders sweep through Los Angeles. Wendy realizes Henry is still alive, and visits him; he tells her of his new "manager," Sam, and she plans to meet him. When Wendy attempts to locate Sam using the address Henry provided, she finds that the address does not exist. Confronting Henry with the idea that Sam may be a product of his mind, she triggers his rage.
Later, Wendy discovers her sister Julie murdered in her apartment. Henry locks Wendy inside the apartment and goes to confront Sam, whom he blames for Julie's death. Wendy manages to break through a wall, reaching the neighboring apartment where she finds the neighbors also murdered. After she slips in a pool of blood and is knocked unconscious, Sam arrives and tries to strangle her. Henry bursts in, thwarts Sam's attempt, and saves Wendy's life. He leads her to the roof, where a final confrontation unfolds; he confronts Sam on the edge, and when Wendy declares that Sam is not real, Henry dons the baby-face mask and attacks her with the hatchet. He nearly strikes her, but instead leaps from the building to the street below.
Paramedics arrive and find Henry barely alive. Wendy enters his apartment, which is plastered with delusional images, including a poster of a house resembling Sam's. On his television set, Wendy watches a live broadcast of paramedics trying to revive him. He utters the line, > I'm on TV, < and dies on live television.
