American doctor Shane (Vincent Gallo) arrives in Paris for a honeymoon with his new young bride (Tricia Vessey), but the cuddles soon turn to carnal violence as Shane sneaks off in search of his true objective: his former colleague Leo (Alex Descas), who might be in possession of the antidote to a tropical virus that has transformed Leo's wife (Béatrice Dalle) into a ravenous sexual cannibal. Denis' delectably photographed yet shockingly violent imagery terrifies not so much by its goriness as by its correlations between intellect and instinct, ecstasy and agony, displaying the blurred and often interchangeable limits of human desire.