Years after the baffling disappearance of his brother Frank, Larry Cotton and his second wife Julia move back into his family home. In the attic they find a strange pile of clothes and photos belonging to Frank. Julia is unsettled in her new house, and grows increasingly depressed with her new married life. An uncanny accident causes Frank to return in a monstrous form, telling his old love Julia about a mysterious puzzle-box that has entrapped him in hell, and that he needs human blood to escape his captors, the Cenobites. When Julia agrees to help they are catapulted into a sinister and spectacular whirlpool of murderous events that threatens to end in ultimate and infinite pain for everyone involved.