Laura Through the Windshield

George Hemmings and the mysterious Ian Lundgren run Forbidden Films, a fledgling indie company about to release a gore-soaked and nudity-filled Swedish flick from the 1970s called Red Herrings of the Naked Hussy on DVD and Blu-ray. After previewing a print of the movie at their office in an unnamed American city, Ian mentions that the owner of it sent along an 8mm reel of behind the scenes footage from the film’s production, and they fire it up on the projector. To their astonishment, a young actress appears to be murdered in the clip, leaving George and Ian with a potential marketing gimmick — a genuine snuff film as a bonus feature.

Flash forward to three months later: Red Herrings has been released on video to surprise success, and George and Ian are headed to Scorpion’s Tail for an annual party at the country mansion of Clive and Laura Barrows, two childhood friends of George’s who are rumored to share more than a brotherly and sisterly love for each other. But Ian is delayed when his fiancé Anita is murdered by a masked and black-gloved killer on the same evening, and while George makes it out to the mansion, his attempt to seduce Laura forces him to flee from the party drunk and disgraced. Driving home on a dark and lonely road, George hits the brakes when he sees a naked woman dart into the road, but he’s too late — he crashes into her and propelled in the air she smashes through his windshield, landing bleeding and dead in his passenger seat. Worse still, the dead woman is Laura Barrows, and the stab wound in the back of her neck certainly did not come from the accident.

A panicking George contacts Ian, having no idea that his friend also has a dead woman on his hands. Recently grilled by the imperturbable Lieutenant Silva about Anita’s murder, a weary Ian entices George to get rid of Laura’s body, and together they toss it off a cliff. When her corpse washes up on shore the next morning, George and Ian become prime suspects in Silva’s eyes for both murders. His investigation leads him to the film Red Herrings, and he uncovers a possible link between the snuff film and Ian’s mysterious past, which includes yet another dead woman from years before.

Trying to clear his and Ian’s names by finding the real killer, George teams up with Erica, a young film critic he met at Clive and Laura’s party. Together they try to solve the murders, although George isn’t about to share the fact that he was the last one to see Laura alive. Meanwhile, the murderer remains on the loose, and until George and Erica uncover the truth, the body count will only continue.