While the film is in the general slasher film category, it is an attempt at a realistic portrayal rather than the Grand Guignol style of most of this type. The protagonist, Anne, played by Palmer, is a bicycle messenger who accompanies her somewhat estranged boyfriend on a mountain biking holiday in the distant reaches of the "huge" Whistler Mountains (location never specified, but the movie was shot in Germany), where the two decide to cycle down a trail which had been closed to biking, and thus deserted. The pair are surreptitiously followed, however, by another mountain biker; a charming psychopath with whom Anne had, unknown to her boyfriend, had a recent one night stand which had become "brutal", as she confessed it to him. The psychopath, intrigued by Anne's strength and courage (he states that she is the "only one to have survived the first night"), now views her as his property and proceeds to quickly dispatch anyone who attempts to stand in the way of his enjoying her slow and painful death; the resourcefulness and courage shown in her efforts at evading him make up the rest of the movie. Aside from the psychopath, who by definition must act aberrantly, the portrayals in the movie are naturalistic rather than the stylized performances of most slasher films. The film features extended cycling scenes which are particularly realistic.
