If Norman Bates from “Psycho” and Carol Ledoux from “Repulsion” had a daughter, she might be a lot like Sarah Lilith: a contemporary sociopath who lures men to her inconspicuous suburban home and murders them, only to encounter the family of one of the victims who’s trying to find him.

SYNOPSIS:

The film opens with SARAH’S horrific nightmare, in which her lover is murdered and she is assaulted brutally. The authenticity of this event is ambiguous because the assailant may be imaginary. She oversleeps and is fired from her job for chronic tardiness. She then attends a dinner party at the home of a female friend, but her misanthropy alienates the other guests.

At her home, Sarah is becoming more unbalanced and is stalked by phantasmagorias of the assailant and an insectile manifestation of her derangement. A series of flashbacks reveal a troubled sexual history, and one final attempt at normalcy ends poorly when she meets an attractive man a restaurant, but is humiliated by him inadvertently. She becomes increasingly depraved and psychotic, subjecting a neighborhood cat to her deadly predilections.

Months later, she has donned a disguise and picks up MICHAEL and lures him to her home with sexually provocative behavior. She drugs him, and he awakens to find himself bound and chained in a soundproofed room. His fate is foretold when she shows him a video recording of her treatment of a previous victim.

A few days later, ANGELA, Michael’s fiancée, and DAVE, his brother, meet LUKE, a private detective who they’ve hired to help them find him. They begin to search for him and the enigmatic woman with whom he was last seen. Dave discovers Sarah luring another victim, and he follows her to her home. He calls Angela who agrees to meet him at Sarah’s house. Dave tries to search the house, but Sarah’s neighbors alert the police who arrest him. Angela arrives at Sarah’s house to see Dave being taken into custody. She calls Luke, who arrives at Sarah’s house subsequently and observes her abhorrent behavior. Realizing that Sarah may be their target, Luke enters her house surreptitiously and, following a suspenseful search, discovers her latest victim, but Sarah murders him brutally before he can react.

Angela returns to Sarah’s house and decides to conduct her own stakeout. Eventually, she enters the house to investigate, as well, but finds only the brutalized remains of Sarah’s horrific crimes. Our anti-heroine then boards a flight with a new nom de guerre begins a conversation with another potential victim as she and the human manifestation of her homicidal impulses fly off into the distance.

THE CAMBION