The film follows a woman who retreats to upstate New York with her wealthy boyfriend, her sister, and friend, only to be stalked by a killer in a disfigured mask.

[4] Marie Pettis has recently divorced her politician husband Greg, who was involved in a widely-publicized political scandal in New York City.

To decompress, she leaves for a weekend trip in upstate New York with her new stockbroker boyfriend Robert, her sister Shirley, and their openly gay friend Nicky.

Mac Macauley, a lumberman providing the wood for the boat, tells Marie of a local rumor involving a young woman who was assaulted by the unhinged Otis, and hints that he may have been responsible for a murder.

The following afternoon, Jay goes down to the barn to check on Otis's progress on the boat; there, he is strangled by a killer donning the mask Shirley bought the day before, and his body is hung from the rafters so as to appear as a suicide.

[5] The project originated after an investor who had agreed to fund a different film for Paulsen retracted the majority of the money he had promised, instead allotting $20,000.

[5] With such a small budget in mind, Paulsen wrote an original screenplay for a horror film that could be made with few resources.

[7] O'Heaney auditioned for the part at the suggestion of her agent, and claimed she took the role in order to establish herself within the Screen Actors Guild.

[8] According to Paulsen, the photo laboratory had failed to reframe the aspect ratio, and he was "horrified" to see that boom mics were visible in the cut.

[15] Ed Blank, writing for The Pittsburgh Press, lambasted the film as "incoherent, illiterate and inept," also criticizing it for being "sexist in the extreme," featuring female characters who "serve no other purpose other than to appear in various stages of undress and back up against walls and trees so they can be slain or tied up.

[19] Due to its public domain status, various independent companies released the film on DVD, often in low quality prints sourced from video transfers.

[20] In July 2015, it was announced that the film was being released on Blu-ray through joint licensing by Kino Lorber and 20th Century Fox,[21] featuring an HD transfer from the original source material.