One Day, a Mysterious Death Mark Appears and Starts Killing People Randomly

0:20 The movie is presented as a mockumentary, showing a series of interviews and footage of a mysterious case that even shook the authorities to their core. First, we see the interview of a man named Joseph Kirby, a former homicide detective from San Bernardino, California. He says that his city has seen its fair share of brutal murders and drug-related crimes, but they are nothing compared to what he witnessed at the Sheridan family home. The scene then cuts to 2010, where we hear a woman named Casey calling 911 to report the disappearance of her friend, Tiffany Sheridan. That morning, they had planned to meet for lunch, but Tiffany did not show up. Casey says she had a bad feeling, and when she learned that Tiffany’s son had not been to school in days, she finally decided to inform the authorities.

1:07 Next, we see the bodycam footage of the police officers as they arrive at Tiffany’s house, and repeatedly knock on the door, receiving no answer. The officers eventually break in through the back door, and their eyes widen in horror at the gruesome scene before them. There, they see Tiffany, her husband, and their daughter’s dead bodies tied by their hands, their mouths taped shut, and their bodies soaked in blood. Above them, a strange occult symbol is painted on the ceiling using blood. Kirby says that he was so stunned by the symbol that he turned to his partner and said, “He’s back.” The story shifts to 1993, when the dead body of a woman named Shiffra is discovered in the San Bernardino National Forest. She has been savagely dismembered, her genitals mutilated, and even her uterus removed.

1:56 It is revealed that she was last seen at a motel with a man, who is believed to be her killer. When the authorities check the motel ledger, they find that the man has registered under the name Albert Shiny. Unfortunately, the police are unable to uncover any trace of him, and dismiss the crime as an isolated incident, which will turn out to be wrong. In 1994, nine months after the case of Shiffra, the dead body of an 84-year-old man is found. The poor victim was bedridden, unable to walk on his own, and was found brutally bludgeoned. He was stabbed more than 30 times with a box cutter inside his home, and one of his eyes was violently gouged out. The crime scene is sloppy, and the cops manage to find a fingerprint on the door, but it’s just partial.

2:42 Kirby states that there was no apparent motive for the murder, the victim had no friends or close relatives, and the cops still do not connect this case to the previous one. In 1995, a 12-year-old boy goes missing while he is returning home from school, and although the cops thoroughly search for him, they cannot find him. However, the poor boy’s body is discovered 3 months later in a horrific condition, and his liver has been removed. They also find a box cutter, along with the boy’s backpack, and school belongings. The cops get a lead when they notice one of the pages where something is written, but later torn out, but they can still perceive the word, which turns out to be “Kaliban.” Upon some research, they learn that Kaliban means either a bird from the Caribbean, or a character from Shakespeare’s literature.

3:30 Next, Taylor says that two weeks after the body was discovered, the police department received a letter from the killer, providing details of the three murders. There is also a message thanking the police for not catching him, and stating that he will be back, as 10 transits remain. The note is signed with the name Mr. Shiny, along with the same occult symbol. Kirby then reveals how the killings stopped after this incident, so they assume that the culprit must have been arrested for some other crimes, or probably died. But unfortunately, 15 years later, Kirby comes across the same occult symbol on the ceiling in the murder of the Sheridan family, which proves that the killer has returned from a 15-year break. He also states that the previous murders were unplanned and sloppy, but this new one is not.

4:16 The scene returns to 2010 again, and in this case, each victim’s legs are placed in labeled buckets marked to measure blood loss until they die. There is once again a box cutter used to make controlled incisions on the victims. The bizarre thing is that after the family died, the killer left the house, returned with a ladder, and carefully painted the symbol on the ceiling. He was in the house for at least two hours without anyone noticing, and without leaving any fingerprints, or DNA behind. Three days later, the police receive another letter from the killer, who is claiming that the harvest has finally begun, and only 7 killings are left now. The investigation escalates when a news report reveals how a jogger came across a decapitated head during her usual morning run.

5:02 The most disturbing thing is that the head was placed in the middle of the road, in the center of the occult symbol. Later, the police learn that one day before, the victim, Tamara, and her boyfriend, Glen, were attacked in their home while they were watching TV. The killer instantly killed Tamara, after which he used a blowtorch to burn Glen’s face. Against all odds, Glen manages to survive the encounter, but his face is severely damaged from the burning, and he cannot work anymore. Furthermore, he is in constant pain, and his desire to live has disappeared after his girlfriend’s death. Next, Kirby states that no traces of the culprit’s DNA are found at the scene, but they get a lead when a worker near the park reports seeing a man unloading large garbage bags from a white truck on the morning of the murder.

5:49 The cops review nearby CCTV footage and manage to locate the truck, and upon investigating, they find it belongs to a man named Victor Shamaz, who has a small house-painting business. In the next scene, we see Kirby and Taylor questioning Victor, who states that his truck was stolen about a week ago, but he did not know until the police called him. The cops make him take a polygraph test, in which he lies about every question asked, except his name and address. And so, the cops begin accusing him of being the killer, so under heavy pressure, the man finally admits the truth. He states that he was actually attacked in a parking lot, where a man beat him badly, and stole his truck, but he was too scared to report it to the police. The officers realize that this is the wrong guy, and soon they receive another letter from Mr. Shiny,

6:38 who is mocking the police for failing to catch him. Months later, the officers find another body of a new victim in an abandoned building, and it is more horrible than ever. The body is of a 43-year-old man named Dennis Zhao, who was trapped in an abandoned swimming pool, where his death was caused by blood being sucked by leeches. This plan was executed in such a methodical way that the killer had surrounded the pool with barbed wire, and broken glass so the victim could not get out. He also raised the leeches for a month until they became adults, and once the victim was in the ideal place, he began to throw them in little by little for three days, until the poor man succumbed to the wounds. The victim’s tongue was also cut to make sure that no one could hear his screams. It turns out that even leech bites have formed the same occult symbol on the body.

7:26 Upon further investigation, they find out that the killer connected with Dennis Zhao through a Craigslist ad, and the two had agreed to meet up to get intimate in a motel. Fortunately, the cops manage to track the IP address of the Craigslist ad, which was a local cafe near the abandoned building. But unfortunately, none of the employees remember the suspect, and there are no cameras, but the place does have many homeless people around the area. Next, Kirby speaks to a homeless man named Homer Johnson, who turns out to have been in contact with the killer. Johnson reveals that a stranger once approached him, and offered him a one-day landscaping job. He states that he even knows the man’s vehicle and house, since the suspect took him there for the job. It turns out that after approaching the house, and picking up a big duffel bag,

8:14 they headed toward the supposed job site. But on the way, the killer began asking about his bracelet, which Johnson apparently found in the trash years ago. So when Johnson revealed that the bracelet was not his, and that he just found it, the killer became visibly angry, and kicked him out of the car. Kirby thinks Johnson got very lucky, as he believes the killer was probably taking him to murder because of the bracelet. In the next scene, the cops arrive at the address of Mr. Shiny, where they are horrified to see the same occult symbol carved above the door. However, when they enter, they do not find much, except some weird items, which are not enough proof. The property owner turns out to be an older woman, who was renting the place to someone who claimed to be Albert Shiny. Taylor says they thoroughly searched the house for fingerprints, but they couldn’t find any,

9:04 which means this guy was wearing gloves every second of every single day. Finally, the cops find a telescope on the deck, which has some fingerprints. They immediately send it to the lab, and the print matches the partial print found in the 1995 murder. The fingerprints belong to a 50-year-old man named Leslie Sykes, and his picture is identified by both Johnson and the woman who rented his house. It turns out the guy has no criminal record, no employment history, no phone number, and not even a bank account. After this, the police release his picture all over the news reports, and urge anyone who sees him to come forward. However, instead of getting scared, the killer sends another mocking letter to the cops, saying, “Hail Azregor,” and claiming that there are five more murders to go.

9:52 Not long after, Sykes sneaks into the house of a 16-year-old girl named Victoria, who is home alone. The girl is filming a makeup tutorial when the killer shows up and does this. After that, he notices the camera is recording, but is unfazed, and proceeds to take a lipstick to draw the occult symbol on the wall. He then performs some kind of ritual over her body and cuts her hair while the video begins to glitch. Despite all the odds, Victoria is still surprisingly not dead, and is soon found by her parents. She is taken to the hospital, where multiple guards watch her room to make sure she is safe.

10:38 But unfortunately, it is still not enough, and Sykes somehow gets to her and kills her. In the present, Taylor says how Sykes attacked a nurse, after which he entered the hospital, pretending to be a nurse. He claimed to be a new transfer, and cared for 3 different patients for a four-hour period, and no one suspected anything. It turns out that Sykes added industrial cleaner to Victoria’s blood transfusion bag, after which he left. Sometime later, a nurse infused the transfusion bag into Victoria, and she was killed within minutes, but Sykes was long gone by then. After this incident, public outrage begins, and people start to question the police’s competency, which puts them under a lot of pressure. The police then offer a reward of 80 grand for information about the man,

11:25 and encourage people to come forward if anyone knows about him. They also dig into his past, but find almost nothing since all of his relatives are dead. They learn that Sykes was briefly married to a woman in 1988, but they divorced in 1991. The cops try to contact her, but learn that she allegedly killed herself in 2008. After a thorough investigation, they finally find a man named Jared Kelly, who knew Sykes, and he agrees to speak. Jared says that Sykes used to be a socially withdrawn, and strange person. He used to love hiking and rock climbing, and one day he told Jared about how he found a cave, where he experienced some kind of religious experience. He apparently saw red lights, and after that, a vision appeared in front of him.

12:13 Sometime later, another murder occurs, and the next victim turns out to be a 31-year-old man named Leo Deetz, who is brutally stabbed while working the night shift at a doughnut shop. The poor man is found dead the next morning with his heart removed, and the same occult sign drawn on the wall using blood. Later, it is revealed that as the killer was leaving, a security guard named Saroj Mallick tried to speak with him, but the killer ran away. Fortunately, Saroj reveals that he had noted down the license plate of Sykes’s vehicle and reports it to the police. But the cops find Sykes’s vehicle abandoned on the roadside not far away. Next, Kirby reveals how Sykes had disappeared into thin air after 1995, and soon they realize it was because he was not in the country.

12:58 It turns out Sykes had used his late wife’s credit card to purchase a one-way ticket all the way to Jerusalem in 1996. Records reveal that Sykes was traveling extensively through Middle Eastern countries, such as Syria and Iraq, before crossing the border into Turkey, and entering Italy in 2001. There, he attended an Etruscan pottery exhibit, and got into an altercation, causing him to get arrested. Then, he went to Germany in 2003, where someone who had contact with him is found by the officers. In the next scene, a historian from Germany speaks with the cops, and he reveals that he met Sykes while he was living in the country. The man owned a rare and ancient book about witchcraft and spells, so Sykes wanted to buy it from him.

13:44 The killer was so desperate that he even offered up to 150,000 euros for the book, but the historian was creeped out by him, and refused to sell it. So a couple of days later, when his shop was vandalized and the same book was gone, he immediately knew who did it. Days later, another brutal murder occurs, and a body is found displayed in a local playground. The bizarre part is that the victim is the same security guard, Saroj Mallick, who had reported Sykes’s vehicle number to the police. Taylor reveals that his body was displayed in the blood eagle position, where the flesh of the back is cut open, which is an ancient, brutal punishment used by Vikings. While retrieving the body, the officers even find a DVD left by the killer. To their horror, the psychopath has recorded the entire procedure of how he tortured Saroj,

14:33 and made him apologize for his actions, before brutally killing him, implying that no one should dare to mess with him. Not knowing what to do, the police begin to search Sykes’s house again, with no success, until Kirby suddenly recalls the telescope found there. A professor from Caltech reveals that the killer was looking at a constellation called Ophiuchus, also called the Thirteenth Sign of the Zodiac, which is represented by a man battling a snake. This is strange because it can only be seen at a specific time, when the alignment between Jupiter, Mercury, and Saturn occurs, which happens roughly every 800 years, and is expected again on May 13th, 2011. When Kirby studies the alignment, he realizes the planetary pattern closely matches the killer’s occult triangle symbol.

15:19 While inspecting the house, the team accidentally breaks a panel on the wall, where they find a box with an expired passport of the killer, and a key to his storage unit. Without wasting any time, the police immediately head to the storage unit, where they make a horrifying discovery. They find his hazmat suit, along with human remains taken from his victims, such as from the Sheridan family, Victoria’s hair, Dennis’s tongue, and Saroj’s flesh. They also find writing on the wall that says “Hail Azragor,” along with a small statue-like figure that is probably supposed to be Azragor. Furthermore, the cops find out that Sykes has detailed files on each of the victims, including even their medical records. Even more disturbing is that all the murders have been meticulously documented with photos,

16:05 drawings, and writings. During this time, the cop receives another letter, in which Sykes claims that after one more murder, he will be free. A few days later, the psychopath breaks into a young couple’s house, and after killing them, he takes their baby, who is just three months old. The police are confused as to why he did not kill the baby in the crib, and they remember that the date is supposed to be May 13th, 2011, the day the triangle is supposed to appear in the sky. Sometime later, a man notices a red SUV entering the San Bernardino National Forest, but finds it empty. He quickly calls the cops, and Kirby reveals that the vehicle stopped near the same location where Sykes’s first victim was discovered years earlier. It turns out the killer had run out of gas, so he left the car there,

16:52 and since the planetary alignment is supposed to happen around 6 AM, the police do not have enough time. Desperate, the cops begin questioning every single person camping in the area, but to no avail. But then, around 4:11 am, they receive a call from a woman saying that a crazy guy broke into her rented cabin, and her husband is still inside it. The officers enter the cabin, but find the place deserted, and completely quiet. Eventually, they find a person wearing the killer’s mask, but unfortunately, he turns out to be the victim, who has been brutally lobotomized. Moments later, the officers hear the noise of a crying baby in the woods, so they immediately head to the location. They soon come across some kind of makeshift pyre.

17:38 But … He manages to kill several officers, and brutally injures one of them. As the planets align, witnesses report a sudden disturbance in the middle of Ophiuchus, where a kind of red mist appears. One nearby camper suddenly begins collapsing and having a seizure, which freaks out her friend. Elsewhere, Sykes takes his torch and brings it closer to the pyre where the baby is seemingly being prepared for sacrifice. But just at the last moment, Kirby and Taylor show up and shoot the man dead, saving the infant. But then, the bizarre thing happens when Sykes’s body vanishes moments later. The next morning, he is found in a nearby creek, with his face being consumed by leeches,

18:26 which horrifies even the cops. They also learn that he had been living in the woods for the past few days, and his final days were spent cold, hungry, and alone. After this incident, we see that people are finally relieved that the sadistic killer is gone, and the community feels safe again. A memorial program is held for all the victims, and over 1000 people attend the service. The camper who suffered a seizure reveals that ever since that day, she has had permanent epilepsy, while her friend developed chronic vertigo. In the final scene, it is revealed that Sykes left a letter in the mail for the police a few days before his death. He had asked the officers not to mourn his death, and was also claiming that the harvest season will return again, probably in about 800 years.