A disturbed young man who was burned as a child by his sadistic mother stalks women with a flamethrower.
Donny works in a factory which has incinerators, but his co-workers are not aware that he is obsessed with fire and that he is a mentally disturbed man because as a child, his mother punished him with burning to remove the evil out of him. After his mother's death, Donny gets excited as he is finally freed from her and starts playing loud music and lights a cigarette in the house, but his excitement fades away when he begins to hear a voice in the house that seems to be his mother's. The voices and delusions about his mother still being alive makes Donny go crazy and he soon starts kidnapping women and later burns them alive.—[email protected]
A slasher film about a victim of child abuse (Dan Grimaldi) who grows up to become a maniacal construction worker. He stalks women at discos, takes them home, then chains them up in a special steel-walled room and sets them on fire.—Ørnås
Donald Kohler is a young man who, as a child, was severely burned by his sadistic/overbearing mother as a cruel means of discipline and punishment. After years of social estrangement pass, Donald comes home to his mother after an accident at the local incinerator, only to find that his mother died in her sleep. Now released from her possession, Donald's mind teeters around dangerous activities in order to ease his repression; particularly searching out for women (blondes or brunettes, just like his mother) in random mundane locations, bringing them home, hanging them right side up in a personally installed steel plated room and burning them alive with a flamethrower.—Iate
At the sanitation incinerators where he works, Donny Kohler (Dan Grimaldi) watches as an industrial fire consumes his co-worker Ben after an aerosol can passed unnoticed into the incinerator and explodes. As Donny puts his tools away, Vito (Bill Ricci), his supervisor, yells that Ben almost died because of Donny's failure to act. Bobby Tuttle (Robert Osth), another friend from work, persuades Donny not to dwell on Vito's criticism. As Donny drives home in his beat-up pickup truck, he hears whispering voices in his head.
At home, the subservient Donny makes tea for his mother (Ruth Dardick) and discovers she is dead, having apparently died in her sleep. Distraught, Donny attempts to call for an ambulance or an undertaker when the whispering voices in his head tell him he is free now and can do whatever he wants. In the kitchen, he sees a box of matches and remembers how his abusive mother used to punish him for bad behavior by burning his arms over the flame of the gas stove. The next day, Bobby calls Donny to see if he is upset about the accident. Donny declares he is fine and will return to work the following day. Donny is seen putting steel siding in a room of the house.
In town that evening, Donny persuades Kathy Jordan (Joanna Brushay), who works in a florist's shop, to sell him flowers for his sick mother although the store has closed for the night. After closing the shop, Kathy misses her bus home. She accepts a ride from Donny to the next bus stop, but first he wants to drop off the flowers at his house. Kathy agrees and Donny persuades her to come inside, where he informs her that his mother has grown worse and he must wait for the doctor to arrive. When Kathy uses his phone to call a cab, Donny knocks her out. She awakens to find herself hanging naked from the ceiling in the steel-plated room, bound in leather and chains. She cries for help, while Donny sits in his room and imagines his mother calling him to receive his punishment in the kitchen. Wearing a flame resistant suit, Donny pours gasoline on Kathy. She begs him to stop, but he torches her body with a flamethrower and watches silently as her body burns.
Meanwhile, Vito complains to Bobby that Donny has not shown up for work in a week or called to explain his absence.
Donny offers to drive a woman to a gas station after her car has stalled on the side of the road near a beach. She is not suspicious when he wants to stop by his house and she is subjected to the same fate as Kathy.
Donny runs into another woman at a grocery store and offers to give her a ride home. He takes her back to his house where she too ends up a victim (off camera).
Later, Donny converses with his mother's dead body (which is burned to a crisp) and wants to introduce her to his latest victim before she meets his other women friends. Just then, Donny gets a phone call from Bobby warning him that Vito will fire him if he does not return to work by Monday. During the conversation, Donny imagines his mother's desiccated body standing in the hallway, with white hair, and wearing a black shroud. He tells Bobby he is scared because his mother is very ill, but turns down Bobby's offer to visit him at home. Donny imagines he hears his mother insist that he will never leave her as her husband did. Other voices in Donny's head command him to punish his mother the way she punished him, and he now has friends to help him. In one room, all of his three victims are dressed in his mother's clothing, each charred body in its own chair. When he imagines his victims laughing at him, he slaps the face of one of the corpses and orders them to stop. In bed, he has nightmares and he wakes in a sweat, and becomes frightened when he imagines his mother alive.
Donny goes to a nearby church, lights a candle and takes a small bottle of holy water. He shows Father Gerritty the scars on his arms and confesses that his mother punished him to rid him of evil. Father Gerritty asks Donny to forgive his mother, and banish evil thoughts from his mind. At home, Donny sprinkles holy water on his mother's body and promises to forgive her.
Donny calls Bobby and invites him to a movie but Bobby has other ideas. He instructs Donny to meet him at the disco and he arranges for some women to join them. Despite his lack of social skills, Donny visits a clothing store wanting to know what to wear to a disco club, and the salesman shows him some outfits which Donny randomly purchases a suit for himself.
At the disco, Donny arrives and Bobby introduces him to their dates, Karen and Farrah. Bobby dances with his date, Karen, but Donny is shy. When Farrah, his date, grabs his arms coaxing him to dance, she inadvertently holds his arm over a lit candle on the dining table and it suddenly reminds Donny of his arms being burned on the stove. He throws hot wax from the table candle on her face and sets her hair on fire. Tony, Farrah's brother, beats Donny in the parking lot but he manages to break free and drive away.
After driving away, Donny picks up Suzanne and Patty, two hitchhikers, and persuades them to party at his house. The women are impressed with Donny's large home and begin exploring. Meanwhile, Bobby is upset by Donny's actions and persuades Father Gerritty to speak to Donny before more terrible things happen.
Donny takes Suzanne upstairs to show her the house. When Patty looks for her, she discovers the room full of corpses and screams as Donny drags her away.
Bobby and Father Gerritty knock on Donny's door to warn him that Tony is after him. They break in and discover Suzanne and Patty tied up. Donny appears at the top of the stairs in his flame resistant suit, tells the priest his advice did not work, and blasts him with his flamethrower. Father Gerritty runs to the porch, where Bobby stomps out the fire.
The voices tell Donny he has been found out. He returns to his corpse room, where the charred bodies suddenly come to life, surround him and confess their hatred. When he tries to leave, his mother's corpse blocks the doorway and he sets fire to the house. Donny burns to death along with his victims.
In the final scene, there is a TV news report about the fire and Donny's death, which is being watched by a young boy named Michael. Suddenly, Michael's abusive mother walks into the room and beats her son for failing to clean his room when he would rather listen to a television news report about Donny's house burning to the ground. After Michael's mother leaves the room, Michael hears the exact same whispering voices in his head and tell him not to worry, they will help him.
