The film begins with the film's protagonist, Jamie (Lucas Pittaway), recalling an unusual nightmare. When he awakes the camera focuses on everyday scenes in the dismal Adelaide suburb of Salisbury North, and shows Jamie's dull and uneventful life, in which his distressed mother Elizabeth (Louise Harris) looks after his younger brothers, and he lacks a father figure. One day his mother's boyfriend takes indecent photographs of the boys and since the police are reluctant to intervene, Elizabeth is contacted by Barry (Richard Green), a gay man who introduces her to John (Daniel Henshall). John, who despises paedophiles and homosexuals, deals with the boyfriend by continually harassing him until he is forced to leave the town, in which time he assumes the role of Jamie's father figure.

As Jamie befriends John, he is slowly drawn into his homophobic and violent tendencies, and soon realises that he is within John's control, unable to escape because of his charismatic and intimidating dominance. John meanwhile influences the rest of the neighbourhood with his extremely homophobic views, and separates Barry from his younger boyfriend Robert (Aaron Viergever). Barry is not seen again in the suburb, leaving behind only a tape telling his brother that he is going to Queensland.

Shortly afterward, Jamie visits his drug-addicted best friend Gavin (Bob Adriaens) with John, who takes a disliking to him. Later one night John and Robert take Jamie into his garden shed and show him the bodies of Barry and Gavin. Distressed, Jamie lashes out at John but is powerless to resist, and remains under his influence. John learns that Jamie was abused by his half-brother Troy (Anthony Groves), and tells Jamie that he will take revenge on him. He drags Troy out of bed one morning and proceeds to torture Troy, after handcuffing him to a rail affixed to the wall. Jamie is then presented with the brutal aftermath of the torture, at which point Troy is partly strangled. Jamie then takes over the killing, in an act of mercy, to spare him from any further pain by quickening death. After this event Jamie has become increasingly desensitised, and assists John in carrying out several murders. John and his team dump the bodies in the vault of the abandoned bank, used as a computer storeroom, in the desolate village of Snowtown.

Jamie is later persuaded by John to lure his half-brother Dave (Beau Gosling) to look at a computer that is for sale being kept in the Snowtown bank. Jamie drives with him to the town, vaguely conscious of what he is doing, and takes Dave into the building, where he is met by John and Robert. Unaware of what is going on, Dave sees Jamie shut the door of the bank as the screen fades to black. A title card appears telling the viewer that on 20 May 1999, South Australian Police discovered the remains of eight people stored in barrels in the bank vault of Snowtown, and that the following day John Bunting and Robert Wagner were arrested, and shows the fate of them and of Jamie Vlassakis after the trial.