Enduring a troubled childhood, Henry Shaw's only means of finding solace was through the horror films that would play on the television every night. In 1984 Chicago, Henry is a bright young man with a loving girlfriend, Jamie, and a fulfilling job as an article contributor for the most popular horror magazine in the country. Henry also enjoys engaging in debates with his friend, Donald Brooks, a prestigious film critic who doesn't share Henry's appreciation for the genre. Unbeknownst to Henry though, Donald's distraught by the news that his unbalanced former colleague, Leonard Massey, has just been released from an institution, where he was locked up after attempting to strangle a teenager in a movie theater in a fit of rage. Years ago, a prank from a group of delinquents went horribly wrong, causing Massey to get into a near-fatal car accident that left him mentally and physically scarred. With Massey's recent release, a series of grisly murders plagues the city, with all the victims being members of the horror community, and Henry fears that he may soon share their fate.
