The movie revolves around an S8-film that was found in a safe by a just recently widowed woman. The film contains a very disturbing and cruel murder of a young girl. However, the film is not an actual movie with actors and such. Now the wealthy widow hires a private investigator named Tom Welles (Nicolas Cage), who is trying to figure out what happened. Tom Welles follows a trail of evidence and gets really involved with the case. He gets so obsessed that he sort of distances himself from his wife and daughter. When Tom finally gets closer to solving the case, he finds himself in bigger trouble than he thought possible.
