| Genre | psychological horror |
|---|---|
| Runtime | 108 min |
| Country | Australia |
In 1968 on Halloween night, Jeremy, a former BLU Scout, visits his Medic colleague Dr. Fritz Ludwig due to the side effects of an accident involving the "Respawn Machine", a device that can resurrect users; he complains of paranoia, nightmares, and the injuries that got him fired from the company. Jeremy returns home to his single mother, watching a copy of M he stole from Ludwig's office. He receives a telephone call playing back his previous conversation with Ludwig, before turning to see his mother's severed head peering around a wall and a masked figure standing in the corner of the room. Meanwhile, Detective Jacques Murneau, a former BLU Spy, investigates the disappearance of Jules Archibald, the BLU chairman and Governor of New Mexico. Murneau and his Soldier assistant tail Stalingrad, a former BLU Heavy as he waits to hand off a briefcase. Soldier kills Stalingrad in an altercation, but a figure resembling a plague doctor attacks Murneau and escapes with the briefcase in a hearse.
Ludwig sees himself inside Jeremy's house, witnessing Jeremy's deceased mother, before awakening in his office with blood covering his hands. He receives photographs of Jeremy being stalked and a phone call playing their earlier conversation and Jeremy's muffled voice. Ludwig is directed by a bloody inscription in his office to Conagher Slaughterhouse, a RED base. At the slaughterhouse, he narrowly avoids a resurrected Stalingrad while escaping to the basement. He frees Jeremy, who believes Ludwig to be his captor, only for him to be recaptured and tortured to death by brothers Zed and Maynard Conagher, the slaughterhouse's owners. Maynard kills Ludwig after a fist fight, only for Ludwig to mysteriously resurrect and kills the brothers before finding the stolen briefcase.
Murneau and Soldier pose as federal agents and search Jeremy's house, finding Ludwig's bonesaw at the murder scene. At Ludwig's office, they receive a call playing Fritz's voice and find the bloody inscription. Arriving at the slaughterhouse, they outwit and fatally wound a RED Sniper in the sewers, but Murneau is captured by the masked figure from Jeremy's house, a Pyro. Soldier experiences a temporal anomaly in the base's lobby before freeing "Cyclops", a wounded RED Demoman, who informs Soldier that the base is no longer under RED's control. The two reach a weapons locker in the resupply room as they are attacked by a mutated Scout and undead RED mercenaries. Ludwig, suffering a psychotic break, defeats an undead RED Medic and goes upstairs, where he helps Soldier and Cyclops evade Stalingrad. Murneau escapes captivity and shoots the Pyro, but is burned in a resulting gasoline fire.
All four mercenaries begin to lose their grasp on reality as they move deeper into the slaughterhouse. Soldier and Cyclops find Archibald locked inside a cage, but Soldier is separated from them. Cyclops, seemingly in purgatory, meets a third Conagher brother, Dell, who describes the Limbo-like eternity that mercenaries experience between respawns. Soldier finds Cyclops frozen to death in a cryogenics lab housing numerous clones of himself, before he and Ludwig defeat the resurrected Sniper and Pyro. Murneau kills Archibald after overhearing him confess to war profiteering with the respawn machines, then forces Ludwig and Soldier to play Russian roulette, killing Ludwig and allowing Soldier to leave. Pursued by Stalingrad, Soldier finally escapes the slaughterhouse as it burns down, crushing Stalingrad as it collapses.
Soldier is interviewed by Agent Stemmons, a CIA agent, who instructs him to stay quiet about the events that unfolded. At Archibald's funeral, attended by the rival brothers Blutarch and Redmond Mann, CEOs of BLU and RED, Murneau gives a cover story of Ludwig murdering Archibald and committing suicide, installing himself as Archibald's successor. A resurrected Ludwig suddenly rises from Archibald's supposed coffin and shoots Murneau, battling his way out. Soldier defects and hands Ludwig the briefcase, helping fight off the Mann brothers' bodyguards and BLU mercenaries. Soldier kills a wounded Blutarch while Ludwig escapes the police in an ambulance, running over Redmond in the chaos, only to die in a car crash outside the city. He meets Archibald, Jeremy, and Dell in purgatory before emerging from the flaming Respawn Machine in the burning Conagher Slaughterhouse.