[2][3] Despite doomsday warnings from throngs of locals, wealthy industrialist Robert Caine makes the controversial decision to build a nuclear power plant near a sacred cave in the Middle East.

However, before Caine can reap the benefits of his latest bid for global domination, he discovers that his son, Angel, is the Antichrist, who is planning to use his father's project to trigger the end of the world.

The European general release version of the film features an open ending, with Kirk Douglas in exile with his newborn child, and his adult son now successfully developing the plant intended to cause Armageddon.

In the shortened version released in U.S. theaters, home video, and network television, a new ending was added where Douglas returns to the company and enters a board meeting having explosives hidden on him.

In a contemporary review, the Monthly Film Bulletin referred to Holocaust 2000 as "the wildest farrago yet to have come out of the demonology genre", finding that "the religious allegory adds little weight to the confusion of the plot".