The film was directed by Armand Mastroianni and stars Scott Curtis, Cotter Smith, Mel Harris, Tab Hunter, Kim Lankford, Gary Hudson and William Lustig.

During a series of mysterious and bizarre circumstances in their rural house one night, Owen is decapitated by a machete, yet the authorities can find no evidence of foul play and rule it out as an accidental death believing he simply fell on it.

Cameron goes to live with his mother Dory Lansing (Kim Lankford) and her obnoxious actor boyfriend Bob Froelich (Gary Hudson) in Los Angeles.

When Bob Froelich is horrifically murdered in Cameron's room, having been thrown out of the second-floor window with his eyes burnt out of the sockets, Sam Taliaferro, Pete Groom and Nora Haley are put on the case.

Cameron plays an imaginative game with a figurine his father gave to him he calls the "Deceptor", actually an ancient figure of a Mayan demon said to be terrible beyond description in Owen Lansing's texts.

Soon, numerous inexplicable and gruesome deaths are occurring around the closet in Cameron's room, and people who have already died seem to be mysteriously reappearing in an undead state.

Taliaferro and Haley seek out Owen Lansing's assistant, Professor Ben Majors (Chuck McCann) at his home in the woods, where they learn the truth about Cameron.