Description A frightened woman named Alma is running down a small stream when an unseen assailant murders her. A bird watcher has his arm hacked off and murdered off screen. Four friends—Peter, Joanne, Ingrid and Craig—are trekking through nearby wilderness. Unbeknownst to them, another tourist is thrown over a waterfall (landing near some oblivious frolickers) and his mother is wounded, and dragged away. The four backpackers set up camp for the night. Elsewhere a pair of honeymooners named Dick and Cherry are attacked. Dick is murdered off screen when he exits the van to investigate a noise. Cherry, now paranoid, arms herself with a small bust. Dicks body is thrown against one of the windows and spits up blood on it. The killer rocks the van back and forth, sending it tumbling down a small hill where it catches on fire with Cherry still inside. The next day, the two couples continue their hike. Meanwhile, an artist painting a scenic view is stabbed to death, and her young daughter is kidnapped.
Two more campers are butchered. One has his throat slit and the other has her sleeping bag hung up from a tree and the killer stabs her to death with a spear. Off on his own, Peter witnesses a fisherman murdered with a bear trap to the head. The killer, who turns out to be a spear-wielding wild man adorned in furs and rags. Peter rushes off to warn his friends, but the maniac gets to them first, slicing Craig's arm off. Craig screams which attracts Ingrid to coming running to investigate. Joanne flees into the woods by herself. Ingrid finds the aftermath of the campsite of Craig and Joanne, and runs away. Peter finds Ingrid at another person's wrecked camp. The two come across the wild mans cabin and go inside. They find several sleeping bags hanging from the ceiling and junk littered across the floor. Peter accidentally triggers a trap which reveals the body of Craig wrapped in a plastic sheet. The two run away from the cabin. A hiker finds a stick covered in small metal objects and takes it. Peter and Ingrid hear the jingling of the stick and Peter kills him, mistaking him for the wild man. The killer tosses a sharpened stick into the hiker, killing him. He wounds Ingrid with two of the spears. Before he can finish her off, Peter grabs her hand and they escape. They walk several miles before finding a chairlift and seeing a small town, which they enter.
Irrational due to guilt over leaving Joanne behind, Peter escapes from the hospital he and Ingrid are brought to and returns to the woods. Joanne finds a campsite containing a dead body and flees in terror. She finds the wild mans cabin. Joanne encounters the wild man and attempts to escape through an open window but is hacked to death with a machete. A posse (which includes Ingrid) is formed by the police to hunt the maniac and look for Peter and Joanne. The sheriff finds the cabin, where he uncovers Joanne's body, leaving Peter even more distraught.
By nightfall the wild man claims another victim (a man in a wheelchair who is decapitated). Ingrid steals a machete and goes off to look for Peter who she finds by morning, along with the savage who they stab to death in a frenzy, only stopping when the search party arrives. As everyone clears out of the forest, the baby that was taken from the artist is shown alone in the wilderness playing with a hatchet.
