Trapped in an elevator during a blackout storm, a medical student must deal with her claustrophobia, while a killer murders her best friend. She puts herself and her grandmother in danger in order to bring the killer to justice, which unravels an underground plot and network of white supremacists. [Edit]

SYNOPSIS:

Despite a terrible storm, Tanya heads across town for a spa/fun night with the girls at her best friend, Marilyn’s apartment. Just as she is approaching the building, Marilyn calls asking her to pickup a bottle of wine at the grocers around the corner. Upon returning to her apartment, there is a blackout and Tanya is stuck in the elevator, which feels more like a coffin, since Tanya’s car accident when she was a child. Her parents were fighting when their car flipped over into a cavern and Tanya was trapped in the backseat. Since then, she has had an extreme fear of dark, closed-in, places like elevators. Tanya’s only solace and connection to the outside world was from the light from her cellphone, which she uses to contact anyone and everyone, including the two guys, Craig and Mark she barely knows trapped in the other elevator.

On top of trying to fight off the nausea, Tanya can’t reach Marilyn. The last she heard from Marilyn’s was a muffled scream through the apartment intercom, which she couldn’t quite make out. That last outburst leaves her worried, and it’s the last time she would hear Marilyn’s voice. She is brutally strangled and raped by an undiscernible person.

Meanwhile, a mysterious man in the building attempts to cover up the crime and move the body, which becomes an unbearable feat given the power outage. As time goes on, the mystery murderer appears to be Sig, the superintendent whose also dealing with constant complaints from tenants and his abusive drunken boss. In attempts to blame the murder on Craig and Mark, Sig drops the body through their elevator trap door under the pretence that they killed her and he tried to stop them using a fire axe. While Sig is positioning Marilyn in the elevator to make it look like she was raped, Craig snaps a picture on his phone and sends it to Tanya. Sig sees Tanya’s name on Craig’s phone before he stomps it out with his boot.

Before the lights go on, Sig plans to kill Tanya, but he has to work fast as the generator repair men have arrived. Sig tells Tanya he’s going to rescue her with a rope dropping down from the top of the elevator trap door, but instead Sig jumps into the elevator and attempts to strangle her. In their struggle, Tanya hits Sig on the side of the head with the wine bottle. Suddenly, the unexpected happens—the power returns. The elevator is moving and the door opens. All Tanya see’s behind Sig is a metal block and two flashes of light as her grandmother cracks Sig over the head with her iron lantern. They fly like the wind heading for the stairwell and the first floor, where their worst fears are realized minutes later when the adjacent elevator doors open to reveal the carnage.

Despite the serial murders, all the evidence, and statements to the police, Sig is not arrested. Tanya and her grandmother can’t understand why. On Marilyn’s grave, she vows to bring Sig to justice. It becomes her mission, in spite of the dangers, they plot to get the evidence needed to get justice for all the victims.

The upcoming Halloween party in the apartment lobby seems like the perfect time to divert Sig’s attention, while they scout his apartment for any clues and evidence. They discover Sig has a secret past of violence and voyeurism with many videos of members on the police force engaged in sex with prostitutes and snitches in a vacant apartment there. These police officers were also members of the local white supremacist brotherhood, which met monthly in a seminar room in the basement. Sig’s grandfather was in the Third Reich and his father was jailed for his involvement in an arson attack on a synagogue that resulted in several deaths a decade earlier.

Sig has been watching Tanya and her grandmother since she managed to escape his grasp. The night of Halloween is fatefully terrifying as Sig takes both Tanya and grandma hostage at gunpoint demanding the video tapes they stole. Nolan, Craig’s cousin, provides a distraction and they are able to escape. A game of cat and mouse resumes as Sig’s police pals arrive. Sig manages to corner the pair and direct them back onto the elevator before a group of trick or treaters distract Sig giving Tanya another chance to attack and a fight ensues. This time he recklessly fires shots and a bullet grazes grandma in the side. With her adrenalin and fear piqued, Tanya stabs Sig in the jugular with a box cutter and he quickly bleeds out.

Minutes later, police arrive from another precinct to protect Tanya. They suspect Sig’s friends on the force of having a crooked right-wing past. After the boys in blue butt heads, and the plot unfolds. Tanya and Nolan head off to the hospital.

Thinking ahead, Nolan is able to slip the bad cops the wrong tapes and recover the right ones to the authorities.

Halloween ends memorably and traumatically with Tanya overcoming her phobia of closed-in places. There is a peace of mind and light overcoming the shadows in knowing they brought the killer to justice, in addition to averting a racial protest and restoring honor to her family’s legacy.