In the near future, virtual reality games are played on biotechnological "game pods" that attach to people's "bio-ports", connectors surgically inserted into players' spines. Two game companies, Antenna Research and Cortical Systematics, compete against each other. In addition, a group of fanatics called Realists fight both companies, decrying the "deforming" of reality by virtual reality games. World-renowned game designer Allegra Geller demonstrates Antenna Research's latest virtual reality game, eXistenZ, to a focus group. The demonstration is disrupted by Noel Dichter, a Realist who shoots Geller with an organic pistol he smuggled past security. As Dichter is gunned down, security guard and publicist Ted Pikul escorts Geller to safety. Geller discovers that her pod, which contains the only copy of eXistenZ, may have been damaged. Pikul reluctantly agrees to have a bio-port installed in his spine so they can jointly test the game's integrity. Geller takes him to a gas station run by black-marketeer Gas, who deliberately installs a faulty bio-port into Pikul's spine. He reveals his intention to kill Geller for the bounty on her head, but Pikul kills him. The two hide at a former ski lodge used by Geller's mentor Kiri Vinokur, who repairs the damaged pod and gives Pikul a new bio-port. Testing the game, Geller and Pikul meet D'Arcy Nader, who provides them with new "micro pods," enabling them to enter a deeper layer of virtual reality. There they assume new identities as workers Larry Ashen and Barb Bricken in a game pod factory. Another worker in the factory, Yevgeny Nourish, claims to be their Realist contact. At a Chinese restaurant near the factory, Nourish instructs that they order "the special" for lunch. Pikul eats the unappetizing special, and constructs a pistol from the inedible parts. He impulsively threatens Geller, then shoots the Chinese waiter. When the pair return to the game store, Hugo Carlaw informs them that Nourish is actually a double agent for Cortical Systematics, and the waiter which Pikul murdered was the actual contact. At the factory, they find a diseased pod. Geller connects it to her bio-port, planning to infect the other pods and sabotage the factory. When Geller quickly becomes ill, Pikul cuts her free from the pod, but she begins to bleed to death. Nourish appears with a flamethrower and blasts the diseased pod, which bursts into deadly spores. Geller and Pikul awaken back at the ski lodge, where they discover Geller's game pod is also diseased. Geller surmises that Vinokur must have infected Pikul's new bio-port to destroy her game, and she inserts a disinfecting device into Pikul's bio-port. Unexpectedly, Carlaw reappears as a Realist resistance fighter and escorts Geller and Pikul outside to witness the death of eXistenZ. Before Carlaw can kill Geller, Vinokur, who is a double agent for Cortical Systematics, shoots Carlaw in the back and informs Geller that he copied her game data while fixing her pod; she then vengefully kills Vinokur. Pikul then reveals that he himself is a Realist sent to kill her. Geller, having figured out his intentions since he pointed the gun at her in the Chinese restaurant, detonates the disinfecting device in his bio-port, killing him. Suddenly, Pikul and Geller awaken in a small church, together with all of the other members of the cast, all wearing blue electronic virtual reality devices. It is revealed that all preceding events took place within Nourish's new virtual reality game, PilgrImage's transCendenZ. The test group praise the game, and reflect on their character roles. Nourish tells his assistant Merle that he feels uneasy, as the heavy anti-game plot elements may have originated from one of the testers' thoughts. Pikul and Geller approach Nourish and accuse him of distorting reality, before fatally shooting him and Merle, and shouting Realist sentiments. The test group do not react. As Pikul and Geller leave, they aim their guns at the person who played the Chinese waiter, who first pleads for his life, then asks if they are still in the game. Pikul and Geller do not answer.

In 1957, at an automobile factory in Detroit, a red 1958 Plymouth Fury slams its hood shut by itself on a worker's hand, while another worker is found dead inside the car after dropping cigar ash on its seats. In 1978 Rockbridge, California, nerdy high school senior Arnold "Arnie" Cunningham is bullied on the first day of school by classmate Buddy Repperton and his gang. Arnie's only friend, Dennis Guilder, intervenes with help from a teacher, who sends Buddy and his gang to the principal's office. Buddy is expelled for possession of a switchblade. After school, Arnie and Dennis see the same 1958 Plymouth Fury—now in a dilapidated state—for sale at the home of George LeBay, the brother of the recently deceased original owner, who tells them the car's name is Christine. Despite Dennis' objections, Arnie purchases the car. Since Arnie's strict parents refuse to let him keep the car in their driveway, he begins to restore Christine at a local garage owned by the gruff Will Darnell, who offers Arnie a part-time job and access to parts he needs to repair Christine. Soon, Arnie develops a rebellious, arrogant personality, worrying his parents and Dennis. Dennis confronts LeBay, who discloses that his late brother was also obsessed with Christine, his five-year-old niece choked to death in the car, and his sister-in-law and later his brother both committed suicide in it. At night, Dennis breaks into the garage to inspect Christine, but when Christine's radio begins playing 1950s rock and roll music, he flees. Arnie begins a relationship with a new student, Leigh Cabot, who has rejected all her other admirers at school. While playing a football game, Dennis is stunned by the sight of Arnie and Leigh kissing in front of the now fully-restored Christine, causing him to sustain a severe injury that permanently ends his football career. One night, when Arnie and Leigh are attending a drive-in theater, Leigh expresses jealousy over Christine. While alone in the car, Leigh nearly chokes to death on a hamburger, as Christine briefly locks her doors to keep Arnie from coming to her rescue. A nearby theater-goer performs the Heimlich maneuver on Leigh, saving her. Arnie drives Leigh home and she vows to never get into Christine again. Later that night, Buddy and his gang sneak into Darnell's garage and vandalize Christine. Arnie, enraged by the destruction, breaks up with Leigh and physically attacks his father following an argument about Christine's vandalism. The next day, Arnie returns to the garage alone and witnesses Christine repairing herself. Over two evenings, the car kills Buddy and all his gang members, blowing up a gas station in the process. Christine drives away in flames and returns to Darnell's garage, where she crushes him to death against the steering wheel. By morning, Christine is fully repaired when the police find Darnell's body. State Police detective Rudy Junkins questions Arnie about the death of Darnell, Buddy, and his gang members. However, the car's pristine condition and Arnie's alibi convince the detective he was not involved. Leigh and Dennis conclude that Christine is responsible for Arnie's downward spiral. They plan to lure Christine to Darnell's garage and smash her with a bulldozer, but Christine surprises them by emerging from a pile of scrap metal. Leigh flees on foot while Dennis battles Christine with the bulldozer. Arnie is now driving Christine, and in an attempt to run Leigh down, Christine crashes into Darnell's office. Arnie is thrown through the windshield and impaled on a shard of glass. He reaches out to touch Christine's grille one last time, and Christine responds by playing " Pledging My Love " on her radio as Arnie dies. Christine resumes her attack, until Dennis and Leigh corner her and flatten her with the bulldozer. The following day, Dennis, Leigh, and Junkins watch as the remains of Christine are crushed into a cube at a junkyard. Junkins congratulates the pair for stopping Christine, but they regret being unable to save Arnie. The sound of a 1950s rock and roll song spooks them briefly, but it proves to be coming from a boombox carried by a junkyard worker. Unbeknownst to them, Christine's grille twitches slightly.

In 1959, on board a spacecraft, two aliens race to keep an experiment from being released by a third member of the crew. The seemingly possessed third alien shoots the canister into space where it crashes to Earth. Nearby, a college man takes his date to a parking spot when they see a falling star and investigate. It lands in the path of an escaped criminally insane patient. As his date is attacked by the axe-wielding maniac, the boy finds the canister, from which a small slug-like thing jumps out and into his mouth. Twenty-seven years later in 1986, Chris Romero pines over a love lost, supported by his disabled friend J.C. Hooper. During pledge week at Corman University, Chris spots a girl, Cynthia Cronenberg, and falls instantly in love. To get her attention, he decides to join a fraternity. Cynthia's boyfriend, who heads the Beta Epsilon fraternity, tasks them with stealing a cadaver from the university medical center and depositing it on the steps of a rival fraternity house. Chris and J.C. find a frozen corpse in a secret room, but when it grabs them, they flee. The thawed corpse then kills a medical student working at the lab. Detective Ray Cameron, a haunted cop, is called in to the cryogenics lab break-in, where he discovers one of the bodies – the boy who discovered the alien experiment in 1959 – is now missing, set free by Chris and J.C. The corpse makes its way back to the sorority house where he picked up his date twenty-seven years ago. There, his head splits open and releases more of the slugs. Called to the scene, Cameron finds the body, interpreting the condition of the head as the result of an axe wound in the face. The next day, the fraternity brothers confront Chris and J.C., who they believe to be responsible for the previous night's incident. They are then taken in for questioning by the police. Based on the testimony of a janitor who witnessed them running out of the university medical center, "screaming like banshees," they confess to breaking in but deny moving the corpse. That night, the dead medical student rises from his slab and runs into the janitor. Cynthia attempts to convince Chris and J.C. that the attacks are zombie-related, but they are skeptical. When J.C. sees Cynthia leaning on Chris' shoulder, J.C. leaves the two alone and is attacked by the slugs that emerge from the possessed janitor. After Chris walks Cynthia back to the sorority house, he runs into Cameron, who has overheard their conversation. At his house, Cameron explains to Chris that the escaped lunatic's 1959 victim was his ex-girlfriend, and that he secretly hunted down and killed the axe-murderer in revenge. After Cameron reveals that he buried the body under what is now the house mother’s house, he gets a call that the same axe-wielding lunatic has killed the house mother. Cameron blows off the corpse's head with his shotgun, which releases more slugs. The next night, while everyone prepares for a formal dance, Chris finds a recorded message that J.C. posthumously left for him. J.C. says that the slugs have incubated in his brain, but he has discovered that they are susceptible to heat. He confesses his love to Chris, and wishes him luck with Cynthia. Chris recruits Cameron, who was in the midst of a suicide attempt, and they retrieve a flamethrower from the police armory. They arrive at the sorority house just as Cynthia breaks up with Brad, who has become possessed. After killing him, the Beta fraternity brothers show up, despite having been killed in a bus crash. Cynthia and Chris team up to destroy the outside zombies while Cameron clears the house. After they stop the horde, Chris spots more slugs racing toward the basement; Cynthia explains that a member of the sorority had received specimen brains for biology class. In the basement, they find an enormous pile of slugs and Cameron, tape across his mouth, prepping a can of gasoline. The detective begins counting down as he splashes gasoline and Chris counts down in sync with him as he and Cynthia race out of the house. As Cameron opens up the house's gas valve, several slugs leap to attack him. He flicks his lighter and the house goes up in a fiery explosion. Chris and Cynthia share a kiss as they watch the house burn.

Evan Russell, a young American man, loses his mother to cancer. After her funeral, he gets into a physical altercation at the restaurant where he works and loses his job. On his friend's advice, Evan travels to Italy and meets a flirtatious girl named Louise. Interested in pursuing a relationship with her, he starts living in a small town in southern Italy, working at a local farm. Louise, who initially rejected Evan, finally has sex with him without using a condom. The next morning, she wakes up before he does and has a monstrous appearance. After leaving, she kills a cat. After a few dates where they explore the town together, Louise asks Evan about his family. Although he is reluctant to reveal details, he relents and asks Louise to tell him something about her. Louise takes out a contact lens from her right eye to show Evan that she has heterochromia. Evan sees the same condition reflected in the women on many of the paintings in the museum and also on the cover of a book. One night, Louise is having dinner with Evan when her skin condition becomes worse. She runs off the street and is followed by a tourist who mistakes her for a prostitute. Louise unwillingly kills him after she mutates into a reptilian creature. Evan, who has been working illegally on the farm, has to leave when immigration police arrive. With nowhere else to go, he visits Louise's house. The door is chain-locked, through which he sees blood on the floor and hears a strange voice. He breaks the chain to open the door and finds an octopus-like creature on the floor wearing Louise's dress, trying to reach a syringe. He quickly picks up the syringe and injects it into the creature's neck. Louise reveals to Evan that she is a 2,000-year-old mutant. She is the woman in all of the paintings of women with heterochromia. Every 20th spring, she finds a man to impregnate her, and her body uses cells in the embryo to recreate her while she changes into different creatures. Shocked, Evan leaves. Louise follows him and tells him more about the condition. She reveals that she avoided using a condom during intercourse to purposely get pregnant. She also reveals that if she falls in love, the hormones will stop the process and turn her mortal. Evan asks if she is in love with him; she replies she is not and would not give up her immortality for anyone. Evan asks her to spend her last 24 hours with him before she re-evolves. They spend all night talking to each other. In the early morning, Louise takes Evan to the ruins of Pompeii, where she was born, and tells him her family history. The time comes, and Evan makes one last attempt begging her not to change. Louise says she has no control over it and warns that she may attack him. He refuses to go, so Louise lies down with her head on his lap and listens to Evan talk about the experience of being mortal and all its positive aspects. As the sun rises, Evan calmly looks down at Louise as he hears a grotesque sound. However, he finds Louise still in her current human form while Mount Vesuvius, the volcano that resulted in the death of Louise's family, erupts in the background.

Seasoned 9-1-1 operator Jordan Turner receives a call from 15-year-old Leah Templeton, fearing for her life as a man breaks into her home while her parents are away. Jordan calmly advises her to hide, which she does under the bed. After the intruder has searched the room thinking Leah has left, he proceeds to leave the house. The girl believes he has left, but when her call is disconnected, Jordan calls back, and the ring gives Leah's location away to the intruder. After the male intruder captures Leah, Jordan attempts to dissuade him, but he responds, "It's already done," and hangs up. The next day, a television report confirms that Leah has been murdered. Emotionally affected, Jordan decides she can no longer handle field calls. Six months later, Jordan is training 9-1-1 operators. Teenager Casey Welson, after heading home from the Mall, is almost hit by a car in the parking garage. The driver apologises but then assaults her and throws her into the trunk of his car. Kidnapped, Casey uses a disposable phone to call 9-1-1. Brooke, a rookie operator, receives the call but can't handle it, so Jordan takes over. However, since Casey is using a burner phone, her exact location cannot be determined by GPS. As the kidnapper drives, Jordan gets Casey to provide details about the man who abducted her and the colour of the car which she describes as a red/maroon 4 door car. Jordan gets her to knock off the tail light and wave to signal an incoming car. While waving, a woman driving behind sees Casey's arm, and calls 9-1-1 on a phone with GPS. With her disclosure of the location, Jordan shares the location to the police. The woman drives near the kidnapper’s car and tells 9-1-1 the plate number of the car, but it comes up as a stolen plate. While Jordan is questioning further, the woman overtakes the vehicle, which spooks the kidnapper and forces him to exit the highway. The woman provides the road he took to Jordan. When Casey discovers paint in the trunk, Jordan has her pour the paint out of the tail-light hole to help police with tracking the car. The paint pouring attracts the attention of another driver, Alan Denado, but the kidnapper viciously bludgeons him into unconsciousness with a shovel and, assuming him to be dead, stuffs him into the trunk of his car, a black Lincoln Town Car Signature Limited, with Casey. On the road again, Alan awakens in his trunk and begins panicking. Hearing his screams, the kidnapper pulls over and kills him. When he later stops for gas, Casey tries to crawl out of the trunk into the back seat and yell for help. When a gas attendant sees her and tries to open the car door, the kidnapper douses him with gasoline and burns him alive. Meanwhile, the police find the kidnapper's abandoned car, a red Toyota Camry LE in a parking lot off a nearby highway and, using fingerprints left at the scene, discover the kidnapper's identity, Michael Foster. Arriving at their destination, Michael removes Casey from the trunk. He finds the phone in her pocket, still connected to 9-1-1. Jordan informs Michael that the police have discovered his identity and have enough evidence to charge him for his crimes, advising him to surrender and to not hurt Casey. Before smashing the phone, Michael responds, "It's already done,” making Jordan realise that Michael was also behind Leah’s death. Meanwhile, Jordan’s boyfriend, police officer Paul Phillips, and others raid Michael's home, finding only his wife and children. When an officer finds a photo of Michael and his sister, Melinda, Paul notices Casey's physical resemblance. Additionally, their childhood home is revealed by Michael's wife to have burned down, although a nearby cottage, which police later raid but then find it empty, still remains. As Michael begins to torture Casey, now restrained to a foldable wheelchair and subjected to nitrous oxide, she manages to spray him in the eyes and escape, but is later recaptured after being horrified by what she finds in another room. Determined to rescue her, Jordan drives to the cottage where she finds a number of photos of Michael with his leukemia -stricken sister. Stepping outside, she recognises sounds from an outdoor flagpole — exactly what she'd heard in the background at the end of the 9-1-1 call. Next to the flagpole, she also finds a trap door where the primary house once stood. Jordan accidentally drops her cell phone down the cellar and climbs down to get it. Jordan hides from Michael in the cellar. Looking around, it becomes clear Michael had incestuous feelings towards his sister and was distraught when she fell ill and died. Michael keeps a prop head which he treats as his sister. He has been killing and scalping people similar to her since then, trying to find scalps that match his sister's hair, which she lost from chemotherapy. Jordan soon finds Casey strapped to the wheelchair and attacks Michael as he begins to scalp Casey’s forehead. Jordan frees her and they try to escape, during which Casey stabs Michael in the back with scissors. Removing the scissors to hurt Casey, Jordan and Casey kick him back down into the cellar, knocking him unconscious. Instead of calling 9-1-1, they tape him to the same chair he used to torture Casey. When Michael regains consciousness, the women reveal that they intend to leave him there to die. Casey will claim she blacked out and escaped, and Jordan found her in the woods, while everyone will assume that Michael has fled. He first insults them, then pleads that they cannot do this to him. Jordan replies with his own words, "It's already done," and locks the door as Michael screams in horror.

Best friends Marie and Alex are on their way to stay at Alex's parents' house for the weekend to study. Upon arriving, Alex gives Marie a tour of her house, then they have dinner and go to bed. While the family sleeps, Marie stays awake in the guest bedroom, listening to music and masturbating. Marie hears a doorbell ring and Alex's father Daniel answers it. A man slashes Daniel's face with a straight razor, presses him between two staircase spindles, and shoves a bookcase towards his head, decapitating him. Alex's mother, awakened by the noise, finds Daniel dead and is approached by the killer. Marie, hearing the mother's screams, rearranges the guest bedroom to conceal her presence, and hides under her bed. The killer inspects Marie's room but does not find her. Marie creeps downstairs and finds Alex chained in her bedroom. Promising to find help, Marie sneaks into the parents' room to find a phone. After hearing loud thuds, she hides in the closet and witnesses the killer murdering Alex's mother by slashing her throat with a razor. Alex's younger brother Tom runs from the house to the cornfield, pursued by the killer. Marie returns to Alex, where she witnesses Tom's murder from a window. Marie promises to free Alex, but the killer is heard returning. Marie sneaks into the kitchen and takes a butcher knife. Alex is dragged into the killer's truck while Marie sneaks into it and hides there with Alex. He locks them in and drives off. When the killer stops at a gas station, Marie gives Alex the knife and sneaks in for help. Inside, Marie witnesses the store clerk being murdered with an axe. As the killer drives away, Marie calls the police but hangs up when she's unable to tell them where she is. Marie takes the clerk's keys and uses his car to follow the killer down a deserted road. Noticing Marie tailing him, the killer rams Marie's vehicle, pushing the car off the road. Badly injured, Marie runs into the forest as the killer seeks her. Eventually, Marie bludgeons the killer with a fence post covered in barbed wire. As Marie inspects the body, he grabs at her throat, so Marie suffocates him with a plastic sheet. As Marie makes her way back to the truck, Alex seems terrified of her. Meanwhile, police at the gas station watch security camera footage, which shows Marie murdering the store clerk. It is revealed that Marie is murderous, delusional, and obsessed with Alex, being responsible for all the murders. At the truck, Marie unties Alex. As soon as Alex is free, she threatens Marie with the knife and accuses her of butchering her family. Alex slashes Marie's face and stabs her in the stomach before running into the forest. Marie chases Alex with a concrete saw. Alex finds a road and flags down a car. As Alex is climbing into the car, Marie appears brandishing the concrete saw and disembowels the driver. A stray piece of glass slices Alex's Achilles tendon. Alex takes a crowbar from the car's toolbox and crawls along the road. Marie forces Alex to tell her that she loves her, and she kisses her. While engaged in the kiss, Alex plunges the crowbar into Marie's upper-chest as Marie proclaims she'll never let anyone come between them. Sometime later, Marie is in a psychiatric hospital room chained to her bed, with Alex watching her through a one-way mirror. Marie grins and reaches for Alex, seemingly aware that she is behind it.

Centuries ago in the Middle East, the Brotherhood of Sleep—a secret order of the Catholic Church—discovered a massive cylinder containing a swirling green liquid. Hidden even from the Vatican, the relic was eventually moved to Los Angeles and guarded in secrecy. In the present day, the last surviving member of the order dies before warning the cardinal that "the sleeper awakens." A Catholic priest sent to examine his belongings recovers a key that leads him to the cylinder, concealed beneath Saint Goddard's monastery. The priest enlists quantum physicist Professor Howard Birack to analyze the cylinder. Birack brings along his students: wise-cracking Walter Fong, demure Kelly, the highly-strung Susan Cabot, laid-back Mullins, and lovers Brian Marsh and Catherine Danforth, as well as scientists Calder, Lisa, Etchinson, Lomax, Wyndham, and Dr. Paul Leahy. The priest explains that the liquid's influence is growing and begs Birack to provide scientific proof of its nature to the public before it escapes. Soon after the team arrives, the monastery becomes encircled by increasingly hostile homeless people. Their analysis reveals that the cylinder is at least seven million years old, can only be opened from within, and contains a substance that is prebiotic yet evolving with intent, instead of decaying. Translating the Brotherhood's ancient texts, Catherine finds references to advanced mathematics predating their known discovery, while Lisa uncovers claims that the cylinder holds Satan, the son of an ancient god who was banished to the dark side. The texts describe Jesus Christ as an extraterrestrial who tried to warn humanity of the cylinder's threat but was executed by those who deemed him insane and too powerful. Birack theorizes that Satan's father may be the Anti-God, an even more powerful being trapped in a parallel realm of anti-matter. The liquid begins to exert its influence beyond its container, spraying into Susan's mouth and possessing her. She in turn infects or kills other members of the team, while anyone who tries to leave is slaughtered by the enthralled homeless. The survivors realize that, since their arrival, they have experienced a shared dream of a shadowy figure emerging from the monastery. Brian surmises that the dreams are a warning sent from the future using tachyons. Meanwhile, the remaining liquid enters Kelly, transforming her into a monstrous vessel for Satan. Displaying telekinesis and rapid regeneration, Satan attempts to free the Anti-God by reaching through a handheld mirror, but it is too small and the effort fails. The possessed attack the survivors, while Satan locates a larger mirror, and reaches through, clasping the Anti-God's clawed hand. The priest attacks with an axe, but Satan instantly regenerates and resumes the summoning. Realizing the danger, Catherine tackles Satan into the portal, sacrificing herself. The priest shatters the mirror, sealing Satan, the Anti-God, and, to Brian's horror, Catherine on the other side. Instantly, the possessed die as the liquid evaporates, and the homeless disperse. Brian, Walter, Birack, and the priest are rescued as emergency crews arrive. Later, Brian dreams once more, this time seeing Catherine as the dark figure emerging from the church. He awakens to find her disfigured body beside him, only to realize it was another nightmare. Shaken, he approaches his mirror, hesitantly reaching out toward its surface.

After human overpopulation depletes Earth's resources, humanity builds an interstellar ark, the Elysium. It carries 60,000 people on a 123-year trip to colonize Tanis, an Earth-like planet. The passengers are placed in hypersleep, and a rotating crew wake biennially to maintain the ship. Eight years into the mission, the ship receives a transmission from Earth: "You're all that's left of us. Good luck, God bless, and Godspeed." An indeterminate time later, two members of the flight crew, Corporal Bower and Lieutenant Payton, awaken. Improper emergence from the hibernatory state leaves them both with partial amnesia and possibly suffering from pandorum, a space-related disorder that causes psychosis when under emotional duress. The ship experiences power surges caused by an unstable nuclear reactor, and they are unable to enter the bridge. While Payton stays behind to access the ship's computer, Bower uses the ventilation system to search for the reactor. Bower is startled by a figure rushing past. He calls out to the figure after seeing its human shape, which he then learns to be a disemboweled body. A woman (the figure) leaps at him with a curved knife and drops him to the ground and then pulls the knife along the curve of his neck without hurting him. She says things in another language before taking his boots. The mechanic, named Shepard, wakes up, startling Bower, who then frees him. Shepard mistakes Bower for a rescue team, before dousing his body in oil to cover his scent. Shepard then tells him to escape "them". Bower tries to order Shepard to tell him what is going on, but Shepard refuses, citing there is no longer a chain of command. The noise summons a group of cannibalistic humanoids who appear to respond mostly to sound. They both flee and hide but are soon found by the creatures. Shepard is killed by the group, while Bower tries to attack them with a non-lethal weapon he found earlier, which proves ineffective. He flees and continues on and encounters an environmental scientist, Nadia, and a farmer, Manh, who does not speak English; both are hostile. He encourages them to band together, and the trio flees into a barricaded chamber, where they find a cook named Leland. Leland has been awake for years, living off the water oozing through parts of the ship, the algae it creates, and resorting to cannibalism. Payton encounters Corporal Gallo, who claims the ship is lost in space and that he killed his team in self-defense. Leland feeds Bower's group and shows them mural drawings depicting what has happened: after Earth vanished following an unknown catastrophe, Gallo went insane, killed his crew, and induced pandorum in other passengers. After goading them into a violent and tribal culture, Gallo went back into hypersleep. Aided by accelerated evolution from an enzyme meant to help colonists adjust to life on Tanis, the descendants have turned into cannibalistic mutants. Leland gasses the group, intending to eat them, but Bower convinces him the reactor must be stabilized. As they search the ship for the reactor, Bower hopes to find his wife in an area for family in hypersleep but remembers that she died with everyone else on Earth when she refused to join him. This revelation almost makes him give up and pushes him closer to insanity. After surviving an encounter with the cannibals, Bower's group finds the reactor. A crowd of mutants sleep under the reactor, and Bower crosses a walkway to reset it. The walkway collapses, and Bower climbs down into the mutant pit to reach a ladder. While Manh distracts the mutants, Bower restarts the reactor, killing many mutants. Leland flees, and Manh is cornered by the mutant leader. Manh kills the leader but is killed by a mutant child he hesitates to slay. Gallo becomes increasingly agitated, and Payton prepares a sedative. As they wrestle over the sedative, Gallo is revealed to be a hallucination as Payton is Gallo. Gallo killed the real Payton long ago when he developed pandorum upon hearing Earth was gone. Because he went into Payton's pod, Gallo mistakenly believed himself to be Payton when he woke up with amnesia. Leland reaches the bridge, and Gallo kills him with the sedative. When Bower and Nadia confront him, Gallo opens the shutters on the bridge's windows, revealing that the ship is adrift in deep space with no stars visible. The shock pushes Bower further toward insanity. Taking advantage of Bower's mental state, Gallo argues they must maintain the violent society rather than revive civilization. Nadia observes bioluminescent ocean life through the windows, and the computer displays that 923 years have elapsed since the mission launched. The ship reached Tanis 800 years ago and landed itself in the ocean. Bower hallucinates a mutant attack and breaks a window. As water pours into the ship, Nadia and Bower climb into a hypersleep pod and eject it. The flood triggers an emergency protocol which ejects the remaining 1,211 untainted pods to the surface, while Gallo and the remaining mutants drown. Bower and Nadia surface near a lush coastline, and they witness the other pods ascend.

May Canady is a young woman working as a veterinary assistant. As a child, she endured bullying and ostracism due to her lazy eye; although her optometrist has fixed it via glasses and corrective lenses, May still struggles to connect with others socially in her adulthood. When May was a child, her mother made and gifted her a glass-encased doll named Suzie, giving her the advice "if you can't find a friend, make one" and instructing her to never remove Suzie from the case. As an adult, May maintains that Suzie is her only true friend. May becomes infatuated with a local mechanic named Adam, finding his hands especially attractive. She eventually introduces herself to him, and they begin to date. May's colleague, Polly, also shows an interest in her. One day, May remarks that Polly has a beautiful neck. During their flirtation, Polly gives May a cat named Lupe. May invites Adam to her apartment, where he shows her a short film, titled Jack and Jill, that he made while in college about two young lovers who go on a picnic and end up cannibalizing each other. May becomes aroused by the film. While passionately kissing, she bites Adam's lip, drawing blood. Disturbed, Adam abruptly leaves. Humiliated, May berates Suzie and shoves her into the cupboard. May begins volunteering at a day care center for blind children, where she takes a liking to a sullen young girl named Petey, who makes her a clay ashtray with May's name pressed into it. Feeling abandoned by Adam, May responds to Polly's advances and they start a relationship. May overhears Adam expressing disgust with her to his friends. Devastated, she visits Polly, but finds her with another woman named Ambrosia. At home, May seeks comfort from Lupe; when Lupe ignores her, May angrily throws Petey's ashtray at her, killing the cat and shattering the ashtray. May soon develops delusions that Suzie is talking to her. May takes Suzie to the day care center, introducing her to the children as her best friend. The children attempt to take Suzie out of her case despite May's protests, ultimately shattering the case, injuring themselves and May, and destroying the doll, much to May's distress. The following day, May meets a young punk and invites him to her house, where she notices and compliments a tattoo of Frankenstein's monster on his arm. Upon discovering Lupe's corpse in her freezer, he calls May a "freak". May breaks down and fatally stabs him in the head with scissors. After some contemplation, May determines that she needs "more parts". On Halloween, May, dressed in a homemade costume resembling Suzie, goes to Polly's house, where she slits Polly's throat with a pair of surgical scalpels and stabs Ambrosia in the temples. She then visits Adam and his new girlfriend, Hoop, at his house, murdering both of them with the scalpels. At home, she sculpts a life-sized patchwork doll out of the punk's arms, Polly's neck, Ambrosia's legs, Adam's hands, and Hoop's ears, using Lupe's fur as the hair. Using the shards of the ashtray to form an anagram, she names the doll "Amy". Realizing that Amy lacks eyes, May gouges out her lazy eye and places it into the doll's head. Shrieking in pain and bleeding, May repeatedly begs the doll to "see" her and collapses on the bed next to it. Her creation comes to life and caresses her face affectionately with Adam's hands, at which May smiles.

An American and British research team from the firm Subzero are drilling samples atop Korvatunturi (Ear Fell) in the Finnish region of Lapland. Team leader Riley believes that the fell is an ancient burial mound built by the Sámi and plans to plunder it. Two local boys, Juuso and Pietari, spy on the team at work and learn their plans. Pietari tells Juuso that Santa Claus is real, tortures bad children, and is watching them, as the team begins to excavate the fell using explosives. Local reindeer hunters find hundreds of reindeer carcasses that they believe were killed by wolves, and head to Korvatunturi to demand reparations from the Subzero company, whom they believe are responsible for the reindeer. Instead, they find a deep pit and no trace of the Subzero personnel. On the morning of Christmas Eve, a wolf trap built by Pietari's father, Rauno, has killed a skinny, naked old man. Pietari and Rauno learn that potato sacks, heaters, and a hair dryer have gone missing from houses in the area. Pietari finds a straw effigy in Juuso's bed and no sign of Juuso. Piiparinen, a neighbor, and Rauno bring the corpse into Rauno's reindeer slaughterhouse but discover the skinny old man is still alive. Piiparinen, Rauno, and Aimo, another colleague, discuss their plans and tie the old man up, while Pietari calls around and finds that all his friends have gone missing. Piiparinen has his ear bitten off by the old man, and Pietari asks his father to spank him for his bad deeds, as he fears that sneaking up to the Fell makes him a bad boy and he will be taken by Santa. Rauno's group dresses the old man in Piiparinen's Santa costume and message Subzero that they want to sell them Santa to compensate for the loss of income from the reindeer. They take the old man to an airbase in a cage, where they meet Riley arriving by helicopter. Riley warns that the caged man is not Santa but one of his elves, and that they must be quiet and smile. Many elves appear and kill Riley and his pilot. The men and Pietari run to a hangar where they find a horned being - Santa - in an enormous block of ice being melted by the missing heaters. Next to the ice are sacks containing the stolen crying children, including Juuso. Pietari takes control and hatches a plan. Piiparinen comes out of the hangar and distracts the elves by throwing gingerbread at them to reach the helicopter. Rauno and Aimo make a net, which Pietari climbs on as the helicopter picks up the sacks of children to lure the elves to the reindeer pen. The other men place explosives all over Santa Claus' ice block and cut off his horns before leaving. Pietari jumps off the helicopter net into the reindeer pen to open the gate as the horde of elves runs toward him. Rauno and Aimo detonate the explosives, killing Santa and causing the elves to stop in the reindeer pen before they can hurt Pietari. Afterwards, the group of men and Pietari train the 198 captured elves to become mall Santas and export them to cities around the world.

In 2047, a distress signal is received from the Event Horizon, a spaceship that disappeared during its maiden voyage to Proxima Centauri seven years earlier. The ship has mysteriously reappeared in orbit around Neptune, prompting the US Aerospace Command to dispatch the Lewis and Clark rescue vessel to investigate. Its crew members—Captain Miller, second-in-command Lieutenant Starck, pilot Smith, medical technician Peters, engineer Justin, doctor D.J., and rescue technician Cooper—are joined by Dr. William Weir, who designed the Event Horizon. Shortly before arrival at the Event Horizon, Weir briefs them on the ship's experimental gravity drive with a simple visualization of how it folds spacetime to instantly transport the ship across vast distances. He then plays them the distress signal, which consists of screams, howls, and what sounds like a voice. D.J. recognizes it as the Latin phrase "līberāte mē", which he translates as "save me". Upon boarding the Event Horizon, the crew finds signs of a massacre. As they search for survivors, the ship's gravity drive activates and briefly pulls Justin into a portal before unleashing a shock wave that breaches the hull of the Lewis and Clark. The crew is forced to move to the Event Horizon while Cooper rescues Justin from the portal, finding that he has been reduced to a catatonic state. Smith and Cooper are sent on a spacewalk to repair the hull of the Lewis and Clark while the rest of the crew begin to experience hallucinations of their biggest fears and regrets. Miller sees Eddie Corrick, a subordinate from a previous journey who he left to die in order to save the other crew members. Peters sees her son with his legs covered in bloody lesions, while Weir sees a vision of his late wife, now eyeless, urging him to join her. Justin suddenly wakes from his coma while the entire ship seems to be shaking and attempts to vent himself from the airlock; he is saved at the last second by Miller, who places a severely injured Justin in stasis. Shaken, Miller confides in D.J. about his hallucinations, prompting D.J. to reveal that he found a longer phrase in the distress signal. It really says "libera te tutemet ex inferis", which he translates as "save yourself from Hell ". D.J. concludes that the ship's drive must have opened a gateway to somewhere beyond the known universe and brought something horrible back with it. His conclusion gains more credibility when a video log is discovered on the Event Horizon, showing the ship's crew members horrifically brutalizing each other after engaging the gravity drive, with their captain chanting in Latin as he holds his own eyeballs in his hands. Miller immediately orders his crew to speed up their evacuation, ignoring Weir's protests to the contrary. Miller and Smith retrieve CO2 scrubbers from the Event Horizon as Peters is lured to her death by a hallucination of her son. Weir finds her body and is flung into a hallucination of his wife's suicide, driving him to gouge out his own eyes and embrace the ship's evil presence. Now corrupted, he uses an explosive to destroy the Lewis and Clark, killing Smith and blasting Cooper into space before killing D.J. by vivisecting him. Miller confronts Weir on the bridge but is overpowered. Weir initiates a 10-minute countdown to activate the gravity drive and return the ship to the hellish dimension. Meanwhile, Cooper uses his spacesuit's oxygen supply to propel himself back to the ship and appears at the bridge window. Weir shoots at him, shattering the window and blowing himself into space with the decompression. Miller, Starck, and Cooper survive and manage to seal off the ship's bridge. With their own ship destroyed, Miller plans to split the Event Horizon in two with explosives and use its forward section as a lifeboat. He is attacked by hallucinations which turn out to be the resurrected and even more mutilated Weir. Miller fights him at the gravity drive and detonates the explosives, sacrificing himself to save his remaining crew. The gravity drive activates, pulling the ship's stern into a black hole. Starck and Cooper enter stasis beside a comatose Justin and wait to be rescued. 72 days later, the wreckage of the Event Horizon is boarded by a rescue party who discover the survivors in stasis. Starck hallucinates Weir as one of the rescuers and screams but she quickly awakens, realizing that it was only a nightmare. Cooper and the rescue team try to calm the terrified Starck as the doors close.