The film stars Riley Polanski as an autistic 11-year-old boy who records his ordeal as an alien abductee.

In flash-forward, a figure grabs a camera, revealing a murky corridor with audible human screams.

Riley Morris, an autistic boy, keeps a video journal while on a family camping trip in Brown Mountain, North Carolina with his father Peter, his mother Katie and his siblings Corey and Jillian.

Personal belongings are scattered around some of the cars and it appears the missing occupants were forcefully removed from their vehicles.

The cabin is eventually breached and in an effort to save his family, Corey hides the others in the cellar, blocking the door.

Riley and Jillian take refuge deep in the woods for the night, with the aliens closeby.

[2] He also drew inspiration from director Alfred Hitchcock and included a scene of several dozen birds as tribute to him.

[2] While working on the basic script, Beckerman and scriptwriter Robert Lewis wanted to have a valid rationale for Riley to continue filming even when things became dangerous, and they decided to use it as a coping mechanism for Riley after a psychologist informed Beckerman that he had previously treated an autistic child who videotaped everything that he did.

[5] Common praise for the film centered upon Riley's use of his camcorder as a coping mechanism for an autistic boy, as reviewers felt that it gave a good rationale for Riley to continue filming "when any sane person would stop shooting and start running".

[6][7] Criticism for the movie centered upon what the reviewers saw as an overly generic plotline and an overabundance of jump scares.