The film opens with a married couple driving along a dark,
empty road at night, returning from a family party. The husband is David, and his wife, Amy.
And then all of the sudden,
David swerves the car to avoid hitting a raccoon, instantly waking up his wife. As they continue
their journey, Amy notices that they are going down the wrong road, so David explains that
they were forced to veer off the interstate due to roadblocks caused by a car accident.
From the get-go, it is obvious that their marriage is rocky as they both seem irritated by
each other's presence, and they continuously argue with each other. While they banter, Amy takes out
an apple and begins cutting it with a knife, but accidentally cuts herself, leaving some bloodstain
on the apple. The two end up brushing it off, as not long after, David makes a remark about how he
can hear the car engine tweaking, possibly from the sharp swerve he made to avoid the raccoon.
There is nothing else they could do now, but cross their fingers and hope the car won’t break down.
When the car engine just about gives up, they luckily happen upon a sketchy gas station.
Here they begin to argue again about their exact position on the hand-drawn map.
But all of the sudden,
They are then interrupted
by a gas station attendant outside their car window, which scares them. David then explains
their situation to the man, and tells him that they are on their way to Downey. Unfortunately,
the man tells them that they’ve been going the complete opposite direction as Downey is about
30 miles back from where they are. Not only that, he also offers to fix up their car, and while the
two men take a look at the engine, Amy pulls out a picture of a young boy and starts crying,
signifying that the marriage is rocky due to couple’s grief over their child’s death.
After the attendant fixes the car's engine, David offers him some money in exchange for his help,
but the man rejects it. The attendant then instructs them how to get to their destination,
and gifts Amy with a lit sparkler before sending them on their way.
The two resume their journey, but before long, their car breaks down for real now,
forcing them to pull over in the middle of nowhere. In this kind of movie, Amy realizes that
the phone will ultimately end up losing signal. With no other choice, they take out their
flashlight, and start walking back to the gas station which is about one mile away from there.
While walking alongside the road, they briefly argue when David keeps
mentioning their late son’s name, because Amy doesn’t like being reminded of the pain.
After walking for a while, they reach the gas station, but unfortunately,
no one is there when they arrive, so they hit up the motel right next to it.
Upon their arrival, they immediately start hearing the sound of a young woman screaming in agony,
which scares Amy, but doesn’t stop David from ringing the desk bell.
The motel manager casually steps out, so the husband point out about the screaming
coming from the back room. The man then steps back inside to stop the noise,
and returns shortly with a TV remote, claiming that he was simply watching a movie.
The couple ask where they could find a mechanic, and the manager tells them that no auto shop is
open at this hour, and it is best for them to simply spend the night at the motel.
Amy seems suspicious of the manager's behavior, but David decides to stay there anyway.
The manager offers them honeymoon suite room at the regular room rate.
After the two leave for their room, we see the manager retreat to the back room,
and a woman’s agonizing scream can be heard again.
On the other side of the motel, the couple walk in, to find a dusty,
grimy room, with a cockroach in sight, and mucky water coming out of the sink.
Despite it all, they try to settle in for the night, and have a conversation about
how they’re on the verge of divorce, but are still keeping it a secret from their families.
All of the sudden, they get interrupted by a strange phone call with no one on the other end.
Suddenly, the door starts to bang loudly, but no one is on the other side when David
goes to open it. The phone then rings again,
and right after, the connecting door to the room next door starts banging loudly.
Confused, David bangs the door back while asking what the mysterious person wants.
This eventually scares Amy, who decides to shut the door. But then, someone starts banging on
the front door again, which infuriates David and goes to check the next room.
The husband then tells Amy to lock the door, while he rushes to the front desk and complains to the manager.
After hearing his complaint, the manager proceeds to tell him that there are no other guests in the
motel tonight except for them. He takes one of the guns displayed on the wall, and promises to
check it out because according to him, sometimes college kids sneak into the motel rooms to party.
When David returns to the room, his wife suggests that they should just return to
the car because she feels unsafe, but David disagrees because he is too tired. He then
turns on the TV and proceeds to play a VHS tape lying on top of it. As the video plays,
David sees a violent compilation of various people getting attacked and tortured inside a room,
and thinks it’s a normal movie. But a few minutes later, David begins to notice that
the curtain and carpet displayed on the tv, look eerily like the ones in their room.
His wife eventually notices this as well, and the two comes to the terrifying realization
that the footage displayed on tv was shot in the same room that they are staying in.
The husband goes to check out every area of the room, and discovers several
installed hidden cameras, including one inside a vent. As if that's not enough,
the lights suddenly go out and rapidly blink, while the doors start banging relentlessly.
As they back up to the wall, we briefly see a masked figure standing behind them.
Once the lights are on again, they try escaping through the bathroom window,
but it’s nailed shut. Not only that, they find Amy’s bloody apple sitting on the sink,
though she swears she left it in the car. Suspicious, David rips off the shower curtain,
but finds no one in there. From that point on, they try to devise another escape plan,
which is to simply make a run across the parking lot and into the woods.
However, they are stopped by two masked figures standing around them,
blocking their way and forcing them to retreat back to the motel room.
While the figures bang on the door, Amy tries to take off the nails on the bathroom window,
but one of the masked figures appear. David lies to the masked assailants by
threatening that he has a gun. This seems to work for the time being, and enables David to tell
his wife about his next plan, which is to go for the one payphone situated in front of the motel,
while his wife distracts the masked figures to buy them some time.
And so, Amy pretends to try hacking the window for a way out,
and David starts sneaking to the payphone and manages to call 911.
But it doesn’t take long for him to realize that he is actually talking to the motel manager,
and then a car comes speeding toward him. The car chases David back into the motel room.
The couple have no other option, but to break the sink mirror to arm themselves.
Unbeknownst to them, the motel manager is watching them through another security
camera installed inside the room, proving that he is the mastermind behind this.
Some time later, Amy wakes up and scolds David for letting her doze off, but David simply tells
her to stay put because he knows they’re being watched and listened through the secret cameras,
and therefore wants the assailants to think that they are not trying to escape. Meanwhile, David
has been spending time watching the VHS tapes in attempt to learn more about the attackers,
and he believes that the girl's scream they heard earlier in the reception is coming from this tape.
Based on his observation, he concludes that these people find pleasure in simply watching
their victims, until they get bored and decide to step in. Not only that, it seems that they
always come in through the bathroom, which prompts David to look for a secret entrance,
and discovers a secret hatch on the floor.
Right after, Amy announces that a truck just pulled up.
Seeing this, the two start banging on the window to attract the trucker’s attention.
However, as it turns out the trucker is also part of this vile scheme, for he is only here to
purchase a box of torture tapes from the manager. Seeing the masked figures approach the door,
David and Amy retreat to the bathroom, and jump down the secret hatch. Here they find
themselves inside an underground tunnel, and start crawling their way through.
On their way, they stumble upon a massive colony of rats, and have no choice but to keep going.
At the end of the tunnel, they find another hatch, which leads to a surveillance
room filled with TVs playing various torture tapes, with a door that leads to the front desk.
Before stepping out, they quickly look around for anything that might help them, and Amy immediately
calls 911 with a real telephone this time. But before she gets to elaborate,
the manager and a masked goon step in, and the former seemingly enraged after finding that his
next victims have escaped. They also discovers that the telephone is still on call with 911.
Knowing there’s no other place the couple could be hiding other than the secret tunnel;
he sends his goon to get in there and fetch the two.
Afterwards, he tells the other goon to step inside the tunnel as well, but the couple
manages to evade both, and find another exit that leads into the gas station auto shop.
They immediately drop an entire shelf on top of the hatch, so no one can come after them.
At this point, Amy suddenly breaks down and cry, voicing her remorse for being responsible for the
death of their child, but David soothes her by saying that it was never her fault because it
was just an accident. Not only that, after having gone through such an insane night,
he finds that he doesn’t want to lose her and wants to start anew once they walk out of this.
They are interrupted by a police car pulling up to the scene, but are too scared to make their
presence known for now. Thus, they watch on as the manager steps outside to greet the sheriff,
who tells him that he is here because of a 911 call. Still playing it coy, the manager lets the
sheriff look around, and even lets the guy step inside the motel room the couple was staying in.
Back inside the auto shop, the couple has now been discovered,
as one of the masked men suddenly attempts to lift the shelf off the hatch.
The two work together to hold the shelf down so the guy won’t get in. Meanwhile, the sheriff is
looking around the room, until he sees that there is some kind of light coming from behind the door.
Here he discovers the torture tapes, and soon realizes something is wrong with that motel.
Holding his gun, the sheriff steps out of the motel room looking mortified.
Noticing that the sheriff is about to leave, David and Amy finally make a run for it while asking for help.
Unfortunately, the engine won’t start, and the walkie talkie has been tampered with.
Thus, the sheriff steps outside and pops the hood to check it out,
only to have one of the masked men sneak up behind him, and stab him to death.
The two panic and dash their way back inside the motel room. They then proceed to escape to another
room using the connecting doors, and David breaks a window, but realizes he won’t fit through there.
While the bad guys are now busy trying to hide the police car, he comes up with yet another plan:
he rips a piece of Amy’s clothing and tucks it on the window to make it look like they’ve
escaped through there, but in reality, she’s hiding in the ceiling. At the same
time, David is going to sneak into the lobby, and take a gun which he saw displayed there.
The wife shuts the hatch and he tells her he loves her, before stepping out of the room.
But then...
One of the masked
men immediately stabs him in the gut, while Amy struggles to keep herself from making a noise.
With what’s left of his strength, David crawls his way outside
and finds the manager filming him. The manager steps inside the motel room to look for Amy.
But luckily, he walks past her and leaves the room.
Amy stays hidden in the ceiling until the next morning, and decides to look for David as soon
as she wakes up. But when she finally steps out, one of the masked men is already in the room,
about to come at her. This gets her to run with all her strength.
She steps inside a car and starts the engine.
As she starts driving, an assailant breaks through the sun roof to get her.
Panicking, she runs down the other masked man and crashes into a motel room, luckily
surviving because of the airbag. Both of the masked men are dead, and one of
them was the man who helped them earlier. But Amy’s struggle isn’t over yet, as the
hotel manager goes after her. She runs away, while the manager wails when he finds his friends dead.
Amy retreats to the surveillance room, blocks the hatch with a shelf and arms herself with a
hammer before stepping out to the lobby. Here she finds a gun and attempts to reach for it,
but the manager sneaks up on her and starts choking her from behind.
The two end up scuffling on the floor, with the manager getting the upper hand and beating her
to the ground. Afterwards, he drags her by the couch and starts filming her while screaming
that he should’ve killed her last night, to which she replies by kicking him in the groin.
They then scuffle again,
until Amy manages to reach for the gun lying around,
and shoots him multiple times until he collapses and dies.
She checks on her husband right after, and to her relief, he is still alive.
The next thing she does is make another 911 call, begging the operator to dispatch help
to the scene. The movie ends with Amy sitting next to her injured husband,
relieved that they both survive and deciding to cancel their divorce plans.