| Director | Aaron Hann, Mario Miscione |
|---|---|
| Genre | drama film |
| Runtime | 87 min |
| Country | United States |
| Budget | $250,000 |
Fifty people awaken in a darkened room, arranged in two concentric circles around a black dome. When they attempt to move from their designated platforms or touch the others, alarms sound off. When someone ignores the warning and leaves formation, a beam from the dome kills them, and their body is quickly removed. As the others panic, a man attempts to calm them, but the device kills him mid-sentence. Thereafter, every two minutes, another person is killed. After several people die, the group realizes that the room's technology allows them to use hand gestures to vote for who dies, while arrows on the floor show each person their own vote but not others'. They attempt to boycott the vote, but someone is randomly selected to die after two minutes.
Following a college student's suggestion, the group buys time to think by deciding in advance to eliminate the elderly for the next selections. The captives discuss where they are, how they got there, who has abducted them, and why. A young man, Eric, remembers attempting to flee Los Angeles, and others concur. Eric says that he was pulled into the air, later waking in a red room with other humans. The old man next in line agrees, saying he saw and heard aliens. The disbelieving group eliminates him instead of listening.
After the college student aggressively targets a 52-year-old cancer survivor over the objections of people who do not consider her elderly, he is eliminated. Several people say they recognize the others: a man identifies the woman next to him as his wife, another man identifies the doctor he was having an affair with, and a tattooed man is eliminated after he admits to a cop's accusation of domestic violence. After several minorities are quickly eliminated, an African-American man claims the process has become racist. Several others dispute this, but when the cop goes on a racist rant, he is selected next.
The captives experiment with voting, find they cannot vote for themselves, and attempt to give one vote to every person in the circle. One man gives a second vote for a pregnant woman, so Eric votes for him; this causes a tie and the man is killed in a run-off vote. After several take their own lives by leaving formation to buy the others time, an atheist antagonizes the theists who praised the volunteers' faith. The atheist is briefly saved, but when he mocks the girl beside him for having her boss pay for her breast enlargement, he is killed. A homophobic lawyer targets a lesbian, and he is killed as a result. The group realizes that one of the final two people left must not vote (and be killed) to render a winner.
The group creates a schism. One bloc (led by Eric, a Marine, a one-armed man) believes that everyone should sacrifice themselves to save a pregnant woman and a little girl, while the other bloc (led by a bearded man and a banker) wants to eliminate them immediately as a threat to their survival, as they believe everyone is equal and no special privileges should be afforded. After eliminating a Spanish translator, a Hispanic immigrant and the little girl tie, resulting in him sacrificing his own life. The husband is forced to vote with Eric's bloc when they threaten to eliminate his wife, but, under interrogation, the couple admit that they concocted the relationship to curry favor, resulting in the "husband's" elimination.
Eric's faction incurs heavy losses after a five-way tie but eliminates the other faction, leaving only Eric, the pregnant woman, the girl, and a silent man who has never voted. Eric theorizes that aliens have used the process to learn about humanity's values. After the silent man is eliminated, Eric and the girl agree to simultaneously sacrifice themselves. As the girl dies by suicide, Eric instead casts a last-second vote to kill the pregnant woman, only to realize that the pregnant woman's unborn child counts as a person. Eric votes to kill the child and then wakes up in Los Angeles where he joins a group of people, composed primarily of children and pregnant women, watching a fleet of alien crafts float over Los Angeles.