Joe Saxon (Brick Bardo) is an unsuccessful actor in Hollywood who refuses to accept defeat. His wife, Liz (Liz Renay), is fed up with his dreaming, not to mention the wild parties he throws to suck up to movie industry bigwigs. Worried over their finances, Liz leaves him and goes to stay with her cousin, Linda (Laura Benedict), at the roadside café she runs, but Joe follows with a movie producer in tow who wants to give him a break. Meanwhile, a trio of lunatics has escaped from a mental hospital, cutting a swath of mayhem across California. The axe-wielding psychopaths murder a pair of newlyweds, dispatching their victims with cackling glee. The paths of all these characters cross inevitably at the café, and the fugitives hold the diners hostage. But even after escaping from her captors, Liz is abducted by Mort "Mad Dog" Click (Cash Flagg aka director Ray Dennis Steckler), the brother of one of the killers, and he is more dangerous than all three put together. A lengthy chase scene through Topanga Canyon featuring a station wagon, a motorcycle, and a horse leads to a violent conclusion.