After 10 years of struggle in Paris, Emma Peeters has to face the facts: she will never be an actress. She decides to commit suicide on her 35th birthday. That is when she meets Alex, a funeral home employee.

Loner Mark Lewis works at a film studio during the day and, at night, takes racy photographs of women. Also he's making a documentary on fear, which involves recording the reactions of victims as he murders them. He befriends Helen, the daughter of the family living in the apartment below his, and he tells her vaguely about the movie he is making.