Incident On and Off a Mountain Road 2005

On a desolate mountain road, Ellen Bree Turner loses control of her vehicle and crashes into an abandoned car by the roadside. When she checks on the other driver, she discovers a trail of blood leading into the forest. Following it, she encounters a deformed serial killer known as Moonface John DeSantis, who is dragging the other driver away. Narrowly escaping, Ellen bolts into the trees as Moonface pursues her through the night.

Throughout the story, flashbacks reveal her training with her survivalist husband Bruce Ethan Embry, who teaches her how to handle weapons and guerrilla tactics. Those lessons shape her responses, and she repeatedly relies on the hard-earned skills he imparted when danger closes in.

Her pursuit leads to Moonface’s workshop, a remote outpost perched on a ridge above a wide waterfall. After awakening in a basement lined with the corpses of Moonface’s previous victims, she meets Buddy [Angus Scrimm], a deluded man who seems oddly unfazed by the killer’s brutality and offers cryptic, unsettling observations about Moonface’s methods.

Moonface returns and, with a pulsing generator and flashing lights, he subjects his captive to a grisly ritual. He lifts the other woman onto a large table and uses a drill press to remove both of her eyes, while outside the wail of police sirens blends with the rhythmic hum of the machinery.

Following Moonface’s departure, Buddy quietly engineers a moment of respite by encouraging Ellen to pick the lock on her restraints with a nail file. When Moonface returns, a fierce struggle ensues. Ellen fights back with a piece of wood, climbs to the stairs, and ultimately overpowers Moonface, shoving him out a window. He dangles above the waterfall, the fabric of a blanket tearing as he falls from sight.

Returning to her car, Ellen discovers the trunk holds her dead husband. In a later flashback, we learn he raped her during a brutal fight, and she killed him with his own belt. She carries his body to Moonface’s workshop and repeats the killer’s ritual—eyes removed and the victim mounted in the yard—before leaving. In a final act of vengeance, she shoots Buddy, mimicking Moonface’s ‘shh’ gesture.