Twisted Nightmare

Laura receives a letter announcing she has won a free weekend at Camp Paradise and travels there with her new boyfriend, Shawn. She is reunited with an old circle of friends, including Jennifer, Tak, Ken and Julie, Dean and Cheri, Gus and Sylvia, and Nicole and Jerome. Laura remains uneasy because her developmentally disabled brother Matthew died at the camp two years earlier.

During the party, Sylvia and Gus are attacked and murdered in the outlying barn by a hulking killer. Sylvia is hanged from a rope while Gus has his arm ripped off, signaling a brutal and relentless assault. The group realizes something is terribly wrong as the killer remains at large.

The next morning, Dean announces that he and Cheri plan to leave after suspecting the invitation’s motive. While the rest head out on a hike, Ken searches for Kane to ask about Matthew’s death, and Julie remains behind at the main house. Old tensions flare as suspicions grow.

Julie discovers the bodies of Gus and Sylvia and frantically phones the local sheriff, only for the line to cut to static. She is killed outside, cutting off any immediate chance of rescue. The group’s morale plummets as danger closes in.

Tak recounts the night two years ago when Matthew was teased for being gay, describing how Matthew entered the barn and suddenly combusted, fleeing into the woods on fire. His body was never recovered, setting the basis for the camp’s lingering mystery. The tale deepens the sense of a cursed place.

Ken returns to the house and, unable to locate Julie, finds Kane in the barn threatening him with a shotgun. He tries to flee into the woods but is caught by a bear trap and then slain by the killer. The betrayal compounds the sense that no one is safe.

Laura and Jennifer return from hiking, and Laura begins cutting herself in the bathroom before taking a shower. Jennifer is trapped in the ice house by the killer, heightening the sense of peril inside the camp. The tension among survivors grows ever tenser.

Nicole, Jeff, Gerome, and Nancy go to the camp sauna, where the killer strikes while Jeff and Nancy are outside with each other. The killer impales Jeff and Nancy with a pole, then bludgeons Nancy with a hammer and kills Jerome with hot stones. The brutality underscores the killer’s reach.

Kane finds Shawn and Tak in the woods, claiming that their land was cursed after Anglo settlers took it from Native people, and that mysterious deaths have plagued the barn. Shawn and Tak are confronted by the killer in the woods and flee back to the main house. Tak frees Jennifer from the ice house before being murdered.

Sheriff Goodes drives toward the camp to investigate, finds Dean and Cheri on the road, and brings them back. He ultimately discovers the bodies in the sauna area and is decapitated by the killer, ending any hope of a timely rescue.

Dean roams outside with a rifle and is struck down when the killer summons a bolt of lightning, electrocuting him to death. The attack leaves the remaining survivors reeling and more exposed than ever.

Cheri’s fate is sealed when she is impaled on mounted deer antlers inside the house, marking another brutal victim in the killer’s spree. The danger has become intimate and personal for those inside.

Laura admits she orchestrated the reunion to punish the group for Matthew’s death. Shawn shoots Kane when he sees him strangling Laura, and a decayed Matthew appears, stabbing Shawn to death with a pitchfork. The revenge plot reaches its bloody climax.

A blaze erupts in the barn as a match is lit and gasoline ignites, blowing up the barn with Laura and Matthew inside. Jennifer escapes in the sheriff’s car, and as she drives away the flames vanish and the barn seems to be restored to its original form, leaving the truth of the night ambiguous.