The year is 1983 and David goes to wake up his eight-year-old son since he’s late for school.
The boy doesn’t react to his words, and when David goes to check on him, he’s shocked to
find Eric isn’t moving and he’s foaming at the mouth. A desperate David immediately takes him
to the hospital, only to discover total chaos: it turns out all the kids in town are going through
the same thing. Doctors and nurses don’t know what’s happening yet parents keep demanding
explanations. At that moment, a reporter on TV informs that this is happening around the whole
world to every single kid under the age of nine. Government officials are trying to get advice from
scientists, but they have no idea what’s going on either. Suddenly all the kids in the hospital
start shaking and the parents have to put them down on the floor as their eyes start rolling back
into their heads. Ten years pass and there are still no answers or a cure. The affected children
continue to grow yet they never wake up from this weird comma, and every kid born after 1983
ends up in the same state. Experts say humanity is facing extinction and new laws are created to stop
people from trying to have babies, which makes the world's population even smaller. The world
is also going through an economic crisis, schools are closing, and many streets are just empty. One
morning, Tom arrives in town to visit his brother David, who isn’t very happy to see him. Tom went
to jail for killing a guy during a bar fight and now that he’s on parole, he wants to patch up his
relationship with his family. David is skeptical but agrees to let Tom sleep on the couch. Then
Tom checks on Eric, who is now older but still in a catatonic state. David takes good care of him,
making sure to feed him and to have any necessary medical machines in the room just in case. They
were very expensive, but David just used the money he didn’t get to spend on Christmas presents,
birthday gifts, and college. David is sure that his son is still inside that frozen body and knows
he’ll wake up someday. While David is keeping Eric in his childhood room, other parents prefer to
leave the kids with the doctors. The empty schools are being used as secondary hospitals to take care
of all the catatonic people and nutrition is given to them through catheters. One of the nurses is
Jean, who also happens to be Tom’s ex-wife. When she goes home after work, she finds Tom waiting
for her while reading “The Grapes of Wrath”. Jean isn’t happy to see him, she’s still hurt because
he shut everyone out after he got arrested. She has no intentions to listen to him and just enters
the house, ignoring him. Back in the school, all the nurses are working to restrain the catatonic
people. It turns out that twice a day at the same exact hour, the kids have seizures that make them
shake like crazy. At home, the same happens to Eric, so Tom helps David hold his son down.
David points out that it’s getting harder to do so, implying Eric is getting stronger. The next
day in the police station, Sheriff Cal is scolding Kip and Claire for breaking into people’s homes.
At that moment Tom comes over because Cal is his parole officer and he has to check in regularly.
Tom notices the two teens and Cal explains that Kip and Claire are nineteen years old, which
means they barely managed to avoid the incident ten years ago by having an early birthday. Most
teens their age have left for the big city, but these two stay in this little town to break into
people’s houses and talk to the catatonic kids. On his way back, Tom comes across Jean’s brother Sam,
who wants to know why Tom killed a guy in a dumb bar fight. Tom refuses to answer and leaves. That
night in the school, a doctor is watching the news to learn about the protests against the U.N.’s
laws to terminate pregnancies. She’s so distracted that she doesn’t notice the kids turning their
heads to look at her, and when she finally looks up they’re back in their usual position. At home,
Tom is also watching how the protests are getting violent and learns that people trying to get
pregnant will be sent to jail. Medical insurance companies are even covering the full cost of all
birth prevention. At that moment David notices that Tom has been reading “The Grapes of Wrath”,
so Tom explains it helps him to better understand concepts like family and faith. David thanks Tom
for helping him with Eric and Tom also offers to do repairs around the house before lending
the book to David, pointing out it’s also about hope. David is in so much need of hope that he
finishes it in one night. Later that night, a doctor enters the school gym and is shocked to
find all the kids standing and tearing off the catheters. Screaming, the doctor tries to run,
but she finds her way blocked. Back to Tom, he wakes up and discovers the TV is displaying the
emergency alert system. Worried, he goes to check on Eric and finds the room empty. He immediately
goes to warn his brother, but when he comes closer he discovers he’s been killed with the alarm
clock. Suddenly Eric appears behind Tom and tries to attack him, so Tom has to defend himself the
best he can without hurting his nephew. While they wrestle all over the room, Sam shows up and hits
Eric with a tire iron, however Eric isn’t bothered and attacks Sam as well. After some struggle,
Sam manages to throw Eric through the window, making him land in the garden together with the
iron. Then Sam informs Tom that he heard on the radio that kids are waking up all over the world,
but they’re also really aggressive. After covering his brother’s body and grabbing his book, Tom runs
out with Sam, who goes to the garden to find his tire iron. Suddenly he’s attacked by Eric,
who only has a broken leg and a few scratches. Sam struggles against him and manages to escape from
his grasp, only for Eric to start puking blood and fall. A furious Sam wants to finish him,
however Tom checks that Eric is finally dead and convinces Sam to leave together. When they get in
the truck, they discover the radio isn’t working anymore. Moments later they make it to the school,
where they find a doctor dead on the floor with a deformed face. After grabbing the keys
they take the stairs, where they’re attacked by two other awoken teens. A fight soon ensues but
before things can get nasty, Kip and Claire show up. While Tom headbutts his opponent to
get him off him, Kip takes on the guy attacking Sam, and together they knock him down too. Then
Kip explains the teens think he and Claire are like them, that’s why they don’t get attacked
and move freely. They go to the corridor to distract the incoming teens so that Sam and
Tom can finally go upstairs, where the light starts behaving strangely. At that moment they
see shadows approaching, so they use the keys to hide in the laundry room. There they find eight
workers hiding, including a doctor who is bleeding internally. The group says they called the police,
but Sam and Tom haven’t seen a single cop on their way there. Tom learns that Jean is in the building
too and she left the room through the vents to look for supplies. Ignoring Sam’s warnings,
Tom gets into the vents as well to go after her. Sam checks the window and sees the creepy teens
gathering outside, who suddenly turn around. While Sam moves and wonders if he’s been seen,
a nurse announces the doctor is dead. Hearing the teens coming down the corridor, Sam decides they
need to escape and they make a long rope out of sheets so they can climb down the laundry chute.
As the group goes down, the teens reach the door and start shaking it, so Sam gives them the finger
before climbing down too. However the workers are found by another group of creepy teens and
Sam hears them scream as they get killed, so he stops moving. Suddenly someone starts pulling at
the sheets, so a desperate Sam climbs back up into the laundry room and tries to untie the sheets
from the pipe, causing a worker who was trying to return to fall to her death. A weird whisper
then can be heard and Sam turns around to find a creepy teen touching the dead doctor. Meanwhile
Tom continues to crawl through the vents and finds his way blocked by a creepy teen. Before he can
attack, the teenager faints and Tom sees Jean has given him an injection. At that moment they hear
a noise, so they rush out of the vent and reach the medicine supply room, where Tom makes sure to
block the hole. Afterward the duo goes down the hallway and sees lots of blood coming out of the
laundry room followed by Sam, who is covered in blood because he had to kill a bunch of teenagers.
The trio keeps going and comes across Kip and Claire, who argue over how to proceed. Kip wants
to join Tom’s group, but Claire thinks adults are the ones that caused all this. They end up leaving
together and bump into Cal, who had to shoot down a teen too. They agree to work together and as
they approach the exit, a school guard jumps on Claire, intending to hurt her. Tom makes him see
that she isn’t one of the creepy kids, but the guy acts out and Tom pushes him away to rescue
Claire. The guard lands against the enemy and he’s immediately taken away by the incoming horde. At
that moment Claire starts grunting and Kip is devastated to realize she’s chosen to be one of
them, so Tom’s group has to leave without her. When they make it outside, they try to push the
door to stop the teenagers from escaping. Officer Nathan and Cal’s wife Nora are waiting nearby,
but they get attacked as well. A teenager breaks the car window and grabs Nora’s head while Nathan
shoots a boy in the shoulder, only to trigger a fight. The teens inside the school are breaking
the glass to reach for the adults, so Jean locks the door and they finally run. Cal immediately
pushes the enemy away from his wife and Tom helps Nathan while Sam rushes to his truck,
only for a girl to jump on him and break his leg. A furious Jean quickly pushes her to the ground
and starts beating her up until the girl is dead. Suddenly the teen horde breaks the lock and starts
coming out, so the group gets on Cal’s truck and drives away. Eventually they manage to hide in
the local church, where they block the door while Jean tries to take care of Sam’s injury. The pain
is unbearable, so she has to inject him with some medicine to calm him down. Tom decides to check
the rest of the building just in case and a girl hits him from behind. The others hear a noise and
come to investigate, only to find Tom choking the girl on the floor. Cal is horrified to see that’s
his daughter Alexis, so they decide to tie her up instead. Then Nora tries to approach her daughter
wanting to take care of her, but Nathan and Cal immediately stop her, reminding her that’s not
really Alexis anymore. Sometime later, the local preacher appears outside the church,
only to be captured by the teenagers. After lots of struggle, they hold him down on the ground and
surround him in a circle while a kid crawls on top of him to kill him. There’s a creepy whisper
through the whole process as if this was a ritual for them. At the church, Tom asks Kip why Claire
thought adults caused all this. Kip explains the kids went to sleep because they couldn’t
stand the horrible world adults made for them, and they’ve woken up to finally make the world they
want. He also explains that the preacher quit two years ago and never said why, but he’s found the
preacher’s diary with the last thing he wrote. The preacher said he dreamed of the kids killing him,
and the description matches exactly what happened a few moments ago. The diary also says what the
teens were whispering: if anyone offers their soul to the children, they’ll be saved by Heaven.
Afterward, they find some cans of food and decide they’ll try to reach the Air Force base. While
everyone is busy getting ready, Nora approaches Alexis and unties her, only to be killed by her
own daughter. Cal soon comes looking for her and Alexis tries to attack him too, so Cal has no
choice but to shoot his daughter in self-defense. The grief of losing his entire family in seconds
causes Cal to self-delete. Meanwhile Claire leaves the horde and returns to her house,
where she finds her mother dead in the tub. Once the group is ready, they leave the church and try
to get in Cal’s truck, but Tom finds car parts on the ground and gets suspicious. While the group
goes back inside, he searches all the cars in the area and discovers they're all broken, meaning the
kids are learning. When Tom returns to the church, they conclude that to act this fast the teens must
have a hive mind to share information. Tom thinks David’s truck should be safe in the garage, so he,
Jean, and Kip leave the church to retrieve it. As soon as the trio leaves, Nathan and Sam see
some shadows outside and suddenly the door is pushed open by the creepy teens. Moments later,
Tom’s group reaches David’s house. While Kip goes to look for the keys inside, Jean and Tom
are approached by an armed girl, who almost shoots them but Claire kills her first. After reuniting
with Kip, Claire confirms the horde has learned about weapons and they’re all arming themselves.
The four of them leave in David’s truck, but by the time they reach the church is too late:
Nathan and Sam are dead and the whole place is a mess. Jean only uses a few seconds to grieve
before she insists they must leave. The group is about to leave town but suddenly someone opens
fire on them and they discover two teenagers have blocked the road. The truck stops when
the tires get shot and a furious Jean comes out to shoot them both without hesitation,
thirsty for revenge. One of the boys suffers as he bleeds on the ground, and Jean just shoots
him again. Then Tom wants to start putting down the barrier but Jean wants to go to the sheriff’s
office to get more weapons, saying they must kill the teenagers to have a chance to survive. An
argument ensues and Tom points out Jean is losing her mind to revenge, but Jean doesn’t hear him and
leaves. Claire immediately follows her and Kip follows Claire, so Tom is left alone. He starts
making his way out of town and when he sits to rest, he reads the last page of the dairy again,
getting an idea. Meanwhile the trio makes it to the sheriff’s office, which is covered in
plastic because of renovations. The weapon room is filled with teenagers, so the trio goes to the
locker room, but there’s nothing useful there. Since Claire still looks like one of them, she
volunteers to steal some weapons from the creepy teens. At first she pretends she’s helping them
pack away the weapons, and when the others are distracted she tries to hide a gun in her pants,
only to be caught red-handed. At that moment Kip hears a shot and goes looking for Jean,
finding her bleeding on the floor. A teenager suddenly attacks him and a fight ensues,
so Kip grabs a weapon to knock the kid down. Unfortunately a girl suddenly shoots him from
behind, who in return is shot down by Claire. Then Kip drags her body to be next to Claire so
that they can hold hands and die together. In the locker room, Jean is also being approached from
behind. Moments later, Tom arrives at the office and finds the couple’s bodies. Suddenly someone
jumps on him and they fall to the floor, but it’s just Jean, who explains she had to kill the
teen behind her. Tom immediately drags her out and they start walking to leave town, but soon they’re
surrounded by the horde. Instead of attacking, Tom tells Jean to trust her and makes her sit on
the floor as he asks her to think of happy and hopeful memories with her eyes closed. Then he
puts the diary page in her hand and walks toward the kids, saying he’s ready. A kid touches Tom’s
face and the whispers start echoing around Jean, who doesn’t open her eyes until the whispering
stops. To her surprise, there’s nobody around her. Not knowing what else to do, Jean returns
to her home and has a shower to get rid of the blood. Then she reads the diary page, realizing
Tom followed the instructions to reach heaven. Soon the horde appears around the house, but Jean
doesn’t react and neither do the children, who are carrying Tom’s book full of hope.