[1] The film opens as Mary Murdock (Laura Breckenridge), a young student, leaves a lively party at a club in New Jersey one night.

The next day, Mary covers up the crime (before parents return from a weekend trip); she scrubs off the blood but doesn't get the dent fixed (a suspicious cop at the auto shop scares her off, then she detours for her grandmas parrots at airport cargo).

Later the news reveals the missing man is kindergarten teacher Timothy Emser (Kevin Corrigan), bipolar and unstable when he vanished.

It transpires that Rick (Christopher Shand), her boyfriend, gets involved in the cover up and goes to retrieve incriminatory evidence (a blanket) off the corpse, but is killed, replaced in Emser's grave.

In a reversal, when Mary revives, Emser has strapped her to the bumper with electric cords and Christmas lights and takes her on a sadistic, all-night "revenge drive".

The film ends moving closer to Emser's bloodied face on the pavement in the early rain, and it appears to be left uncertain whether he is actually dead or not.

The film is loosely inspired by an urban legend originating in the mid-1980s, a cautionary "scarelore" tale of the perils of drunk driving.