When Tommy English escapes from a mental hospital, bodies start turning up. Unable to speak since the age of ten when he hacked his parents to death, Tommy runs through Chicago killing anyone that crosses his path. Police, though hot on his trail, don't know what triggered him to bludgeon three people to death and escape through the hospital window. He happens on an apartment building and begins to kill the tenants in most gruesome ways. Tommy, although psychologically mute, can only speak the language of death.