The movie opens with a
pair of middle-aged men walking through some kind of facility discussing
mundane details about marriage and potential children, while a younger woman in
a lab coat is trying to inform them about an incident at the Stockholm
facility. The two men are not particularly concerned about what she is telling
them. They mention that the facility in Japan will get the job done, and that
their U.S. facility usually comes in second place. As they board a golf cart
and drive off, the younger of the two men invites the older one to come over to
his house for the upcoming weekend.
The scene shifts to a college-town neighborhood with a pair of young girls,
Dana and Jules, talking about school. Apparently, Dana had an affair with one
of her professors and it ended badly. Curt walks in and throws a football at
the girls. It flies out the window and Curt's friend Holden (a fix up for Dana)
catches it down below. The guys are there to pick up the girls for a long
weekend at a cabin by the lake that Curt's cousin owns. Dana finishes packing
and they all go downstairs to pack up the RV. They are about to leave when
their friend Marty pulls up in his car smoking pot from a huge bong that
converts into a travel mug.
We cut back to video screens in the previously seen facility where the two
middle-aged men, Sitterson and Hadley, are watching all of this happen.
Apparently, they have been drugging the kids through various means (Hair dye
for Jules, Marty's stash, etc.) but the reasons why are not yet clear.
The group is close to the cabin when they stop for gas and directions. The
attendant, Mordecai, is old, unfriendly, and more than a little bit crazy. He
tells them that they will have no problem getting to the cabin, it's the
getting back they should be worried about. The kids laugh at him, he becomes
sarcastic and aggressive and there's almost a fight when he refers to Jules as
a "whore". Instead, everyone gets back into the RV and heads out.
They have to go through a u-shaped tunnel in the mountain to get to the cabin.
As they pass through it, a bird tries to fly across the ravine and hits an
invisible shield. It electrocutes the bird and it falls, presumably, to its
death.
Meanwhile, back at the facility, the phone rings and Hadley answers. It's
Mordecai. He tells them that the college kids are on their way to the cabin and
tells them how the reveler almost messed it up for them and they should be
careful. Then he gets mad because he's on speakerphone and hangs up while
Hadley and Sitterson laugh.
They arrive at the cabin and unpack. It's obvious that they are still being
watched by cameras set up by the facility people. Holden is in his bedroom,
putting on his bathing suit when he notices an awful painting on the wall. He
takes it down and underneath it there's a window into the next room where Dana
is staying. She starts to take off her clothes, unaware that the mirror in her
room is revealing everything to Holden in the next room. Holden runs into
Dana's room and tells her what's going on and they switch rooms. Now Dana can
see Holden and she definitely likes what she sees.
All of the people at the facility have gathered together to place bets on what
fate the people in the cabin will choose. Hadley really wants it to be the
Mer-man. There is a new agent in the facility with Hadley and the others, his
name is Truman. Truman is shocked by the way he sees the others behaving, and a
more seasoned agent, Lin, tells him that she understands how he feels, but he
shouldn't judge the others for their seemingly flippant behavior. Truman,
however, continues to question Hadley and Sitterson about the proceedings;
Truman thinks it's unfair, although they all seem to understand that what is
going on is of the utmost importance.
At the cabin, everyone goes into the living room and starts drinking. Marty
continues to smoke the pot he brought. They're all getting pretty tanked and
start to play Truth or Dare. Jules is dared to make out with a wolf head
mounted on the wall. Then it's Dana's turn. She chooses dare when the door to
the basement flies open, startling them all. They dare her to go down into the
basement. She does and the rest of them follow. There is a ton of really
strange stuff down there. Dana picks up a diary. Curt chooses a puzzle ball and
tries to open it. Jules likes a wedding dress and starts to put on the necklace
that goes with it. Marty is looking at a conch shell and Holden is mesmerized by
a child's jewelry box that opens to reveal a dancing ballerina when, all of a
sudden...
...the people at the facility are quiet and on the edge of their seats...
...Dana says "Hey guys! Listen to this." Everyone else puts down what
they were looking at and walks over to her. The diary belonged to a young girl
who was brutally beaten by her father. There is something about how they will
all return once someone reads some latin words at the end of the diary. Marty
says they shouldn't read it. He hears a voice tell Dana to read it. No one else
seems to hear it. Against the advice of Marty, Dana reads the latin and
somewhere outside, the family from the diary returns from their graves all
zombie-fied.
At the facility, it turns out that maintenance and the new intern have won the
pool with their selection of Redneck Zombies. Hadley is really bummed he won't
get to see a mer-man.
The group goes back to the living room to continue drinking, etc. Jules and
Curt are acting out of character. Jules is dancing very suggestively in front
of the fire, Curt is being aggressive and insulting about his girlfriend. Marty
notices this but his concerns are brushed off by the others. Curt and Jules
decide to go for a walk. Thanks to some pheromone fog, they start to have sex
in the woods but they are stopped by the zombies. Jules is then stabbed in the
hand but Curt saves her. He is stabbed in the shoulder but survives. Jules is
recaptured and beheaded while Curt watches. He gets away and runs back to the
cabin.
As Jules dies, Hadley and Sitterson recite what seems to be a prayer. Hadley
pulls a lever and blood runs into a grooved stone tablet that contains the
outline of a figure. The ground starts to shake.
Marty hears a voice in his head and goes outside to see Curt running towards
him, fighting off a zombie, they both run inside and lock the door. Curt tells
everyone that Jules is dead. They decide to barricade the house and stick
together. Courtesy of the facility, a voice tells them to split up but only
Marty consciously hears it. He begs the others not to split up but no one
listens and Dana, Holden and Marty each go into their own rooms. The doors
promptly lock behind them.
No one at the facility can figure out why their tricks aren't working on Marty.
He's not following the plan, he can hear the voices, etc. They're worried he's
going to ruin everything. In Marty's room, he gets startled and breaks a lamp.
He pics it up and finds a camera. This is proving everything he's been saying
about this place. He's just about to investigate further when a zombie comes
through the window and pulls him outside. They struggle. Marty is stabbed in
the back and dragged out of sight. Bad noises follow. Poor Marty.
People at the facility are relieved that Marty won't be ruining their plan.
However, they're still investigating to see why their drugs didn't work on him.
They determine that when they were lacing his pot with their drugs, they missed
one of his stashes and what he was smoking was making him immune to their
tricks. Blood runs into the outline of the reveler. The ground shakes.
Dana is having trouble in her room because a zombie is trying to break through
her window. Hearing this in the next room, Holden breaks the glass between
their rooms and pulls her into his. They find a door in the floor that leads to
another room in the basement. It appears that this is the room where the father
beat and tortured the girl from the diary. They try to find a way out but the
door won't open. Just then, one of the zombies finds them and stabs Holden in
the back. Dana stabs the zombie repeatedly just as Curt opens the door from the
other side.
The three of them get in the RV. The door closes and a bloody hand print is
seen on the outside of it.
As they head toward the tunnel, Hadley realizes that the demolition crew never
set off the explosion that causes the tunnel to cave in and block their exit.
As the trio frantically tries to get away, Hadley and Sitterson are just as
frantically trying to correct this oversight.
The RV makes it halfway through the tunnel when it starts to cave in. They
reverse back the way they came and make it out just in time. Curt has a dirt
bike in the back of the RV and he decides to jump the ravine and go get help.
Like the bird, he hits the invisible barrier and dies. (Blood runs into the
outline of the Jock)
Dana and Holden saw what happened and realize that Marty was right all along.
They head back towards the cabin trying to figure a way out. Holden is stabbed
through the head (outline of the scholar) and the RV crashes into the lake.
Turns out there was a zombie in the RV. She fights off the zombie and gets out
through the overhead hatch and swims to the surface. She makes it onto the pier
when the zombie comes up from the water and starts beating the crap out of her.
Back at the facility, they are celebrating a successful night. Evidently, the
"virgin" doesn't have to die for the plan to be successful. This is
extremely important since all of the other sites (Japan, Germany, etc) have
failed. They open a bottle of champagne and start drinking. The RED phone
rings. Hadley answers. A tense conversation follows. Apparently, the rules
weren't followed. One of the others is still alive. If Dana dies first, they
will lose.
Dana is still getting the crap kicked out of her by the zombie dad. Marty comes
out of nowhere and beats the zombie with his giant bong until he falls into the
water. He grabs Dana and they start running into the woods. The zombies are
after them. He jumps into one of the graves the zombies came out of and starts
digging. Dana can't figure out what's going on. Suddenly, Marty opens a door
and they fall into a room right before the zombies grab them.
Marty tells Dana that this was all set up. He's discovered an access panel and
started playing with the wires inside; this is why the tunnel never exploded
when it was supposed to. Marty shows Dana an elevator and deduces that someone
sent the zombies to attack them. She's not sure about getting in the elevator,
but they don't have any other options. Through the glass window of their
elevator, Dana and Marty can see many other elevators that contain supernatural
creatures connected to the strange items in the basement of the cabin. The
Sugar Plum Fairy, the Puzzle Ball, the doll faces, the killer bride, etc.. Dana
recognizes the connection and deduces that the group "chose" the
means of their own deaths, meaning the zombies.
Meanwhile, the observers are in an uproar over the fact that Dana and Marty
have penetrated their facility. Specifically, they are trying to kill Marty in
order to preserve the intended order of their deaths. Pinpointing the elevator
number, an armed guard is sent to them and instructed to kill both of them,
Marty first, but he fails when a disembodied zombie corpse in the elevator
distracts him. Dana and Marty kill him and move out into the hallway. A female
voice speaks to them over a PA system, sympathizing with them for their
predicament, but insisting that Dana and Marty must die. More armed guards show
up and start firing on them, and they run into what looks like a control room
and hide. Dana realizes that there is a control panel that monitors access to
the elevators containing the monsters. As they are being attacked by soldiers
with machine guns and other artillery, they randomly start to push buttons;
Dana finds a large one that says "PURGE SYSTEM", and suddenly alarms
start going off all over the facility. The guards all pause in terror, then all
of the elevators open while monster after monster emerges. The soldiers are massacred
and the monsters are getting into all areas of the facility, slaughtering the
workers. Marty and Dana are cornered by monsters, but they climb through a hole
where one of the walls was smashed in during the carnage.
In the room where the main facility characters have all been operating, Hadley,
Lin, and Truman are all killed by monsters. Hadley finally gets to see his
merman right before it kills him. Sitterson manages to activate an escape hatch
and emerges into a stone hallway, but he is fatally stabbed by Dana; this is
where Dana and Marty have ended up as well. Before Sitterson dies, he tells
Dana, "Kill him." Dana is afraid to go on, but Marty gives her a gun
he took from a dead guard. They end up in the room with all of the character
outlines. Dana realizes that there are five stone tablets, one for each of
them--Dana, Marty, Holden, Curt, and Jules. Everything that's happened to them
has been part of a ritual sacrifice. The Director appears; they recognize her
voice because it's the same voice that spoke to them over the PA system. She
explains about the facility and their purpose. She says the ritual is older
than anything known to man; even she and her peers aren't sure of everything,
but the ritual is conducted worldwide in order to appease "The Dark
Gods" who once ruled the Earth. She says the monsters they've seen are
nothing compared to them, and both Dana and Marty realize they are standing
over a pit that leads to where the old Gods are sleeping. The Director explains
that the ritual is meant to keep them dormant, and must have specific
guidelines; the whore dies first (Jules), and after that, four more archetypes:
the scholar, the athlete, the fool, and the virgin. The order of their deaths
doesn't matter as long as the virgin is the last one alive. She then says it is
up to the gods if the virgin (Dana) lives. All of this is done as a sacrifice
to the old Gods. If the sacrifice is not completed, they will come above the
surface and destroy mankind. The Director says Marty must die to save the
world. Marty says that if a bloodthirsty ritual is required to save mankind,
then maybe mankind isn't worth saving. Marty is hurt when Dana raises the gun
to kill him; she is conflicted, but she doesn't want the world to end. Without
warning, Dana is attacked by a werewolf, which proceeds to viciously maul her.
When she drops the gun, Marty picks it up and fires on the werewolf and it runs
off, wounded. The Director tries to kill Marty, but the zombie girl from the
diary appears and kills the Director and they both fall into the pit with the
Gods. Dana and Marty make up and smoke a joint while they contemplate the end
of the world. The ground shakes and starts to crack open.
The cabin in the woods starts shaking when a giant hand comes crashing up through
it and slams down on the ground in front of it as the first of the old Gods
begins his climb to the surface.
