Dana Barron

A woman is walking to her car in the parking garage. She gets in and has trouble starting her car. Three thugs appear, break into her car, force her out, and begin to rape her when Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) appears out of nowhere. He shoots the first two thugs, but wounds the third. He follows the third mugger as he attempts to escape the parking garage, but Kersey quickly blocks the exit. The third mugger pleads for his life, but Paul shoots him dead. He rolls the criminal over with his foot, and reveals the criminal to be himself. It is then revealed that the whole assault was a dream as Paul wakes up in a cold sweat. The next morning, a young woman enters Paul's architectural design office in Los Angeles, and it is revealed to be Erica (Dana Barron). Paul is dating her mother Karen Sheldon (Kay Lenz). Erica goes out later that evening with her boyfriend Randy Viscovich (Jesse Dabson) to the arcade to meet up with Jojo (Héctor Mercado) and his buddy. Jojo offers Erica crack, and she dies from an overdose. The next night (without any explanation), Paul follows Randy to the arcade where Randy confronts Jojo and threatens to go to the police and tell them everything. Jojo kills Randy to prevent this. Kersey shoots JoJo, who falls onto the electrified roof of the bumper car ride. Paul arrives back at his house where he receives a note and a phone call from publisher Nathan White (John P. Ryan), who tells him that he knows about the death of JoJo. Nathan explains to Kersey that after Nathan's wife died, his daughter became his whole life. Then she became addicted to drugs and died of an overdose. Nathan wants to hire Kersey to wipe out the drug trade in L.A. and in particular to target Ed Zacharias (Perry Lopez) and Jack Romero (Mike Moroff), rival drug kingpins who are the city's two main drug suppliers. Kersey asks for a few days to think about it, and after a few days, he accepts Nathan's offer. Nathan supplies Kersey with weapons and information so Kersey can go after Zacharias and Romero. All the while, two L.A. detectives, Reiner (George Dickerson) and Phil Nozaki (Soon-Tek Oh), are on Paul's trail of destruction. Paul infiltrates Zacharias's mansion where Ed Zacharias is throwing an elaborate birthday party. As Paul Kersey bugs Zacharias's phone, he unwittingly witnesses Zacharias murder one of his colleagues, Vincent, due to betrayal. Zacharias captures Paul, and tells him to help take Vincent's body out in order for his silence. Another of Zacharias's gang's members offers to help, and they take the body out and hide it in the trunk of the car. Knowing that he is to be killed, Paul kills the hired hit-man in self-defense and walks away from the crime scene. Paul kills three more men in an Italian restaurant, kills a drug dealer disguised as a video store owner and two of his assistants, as well as Romero's top hit-man, Frank Bauggs (David Fonteno). All the while Zacharias and the Romero brothers begin to suspect each other's involvement. Eight more of Zacharias's men are killed at the fisherman's wharf by Kersey. Zacharias is informed by Nozaki, revealed to be corrupt, to kill whoever is setting him up. Nozaki tracks Kersey at work and tries to get information out of him. Nozaki attempts to kill Kersey, but Kersey shoots him dead. Detective Reiner learns about Nozaki's death (not knowing about his corruption) and swears vengeance on the vigilante Kersey. In an act of retribution, Zacharias calls Jack and wants to talk to him. They arrange a meeting place at the oil fields. Kersey is already there and fires his rifle. Zacharias thinks that it is Jack's crew who is doing it and opens fire. They kill each other as Kersey kills Tony and Zacharias. Nathan calls, congratulating Kersey on a job well done, and asks to meet with him tonight. Kersey arrives at the meeting place, but Nathan sends his limo driver instead. Kersey hops in the limo, and realizes he's been set-up after the limo driver jumps in White's car. Kersey shoots the back window with the PP and makes it out before the limo explodes. Kersey forces his way into Nathan's house demanding to see Nathan. An old man living there claims to be the real Nathan White (Richard Aherne), having returned from a three-month vacation. Kersey drives back to his apartment, only to be pulled over and arrested by two cops. On the way to the downtown police station, Paul immediately recognizes them as impostors. He flips over the car, killing one, and knocking the other unconscious. Back at his apartment, Paul Kersey comes face-to-face with Reiner. Kersey tries to inform Reiner about his partner's corruption, but Reiner does not buy his story. The impostor Nathan White (his true name isn't revealed) is mad that Kersey is still alive, and uses Karen to lure him into a trap. He leaves a message but hangs up before Kersey is given time to answer. To get away from Reiner, Kersey pretends to speak to him and knocks Reiner out cold. He pulls a rifle with a grenade launcher from his gun rack. Kersey arrives with car at the meeting place. The car rolls forward as White orders his men to open fire. They spray the car with bullet holes before realizing Paul's not in the car. Kersey fires a grenade, killing three as the car explodes. He also shoots Jesse's car, with Jesse inside, as he makes his escape. Kersey follows them into the roller rink where he kills six more thugs. White escapes through the back door as Kersey follows. Karen escapes his grasp but is shot in the back while attempting to run. Realizing White is now out of bullets and distraught by Karen's death, Kersey fires a grenade that finishes him off. Reiner arrives and orders him to surrender, threatening to shoot as Kersey walks away. Kersey replies: "Do whatever you have to." Reiner lets him go.

Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) is a food processing salesman living in Chicago, Illinois who wants to spend more time with wife Ellen (Beverly D'Angelo) and his teen children Rusty (Anthony Michael Hall) and Audrey (Dana Barron). So, he decides to lead the family on a cross-country expedition from Chicago to the Los Angeles amusement park, "Walley World", billed as "America's Favorite Family Fun Park". In the opening scene, Clark and Rusty drive to a local car dealer lot where he decides to purchase a new sports wagon for the cross-country drive. But the conniving salesman Ed (Eugene Levy), tells him that the car he ordered never arrived and scams Clark into taking in its place a more gas-guzzling, technically failing, behemoth station wagon called the Wagon Queen Family Truckster. Clark refuses to be conned, but after his old station wagon, a 1970 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser, is "accidentally" crushed by a compacter machine, Clark is left with no choice but to take the Family Truckster. At home, although Ellen tells Clark that she wants to fly to California for their two-week vacation, he insists on driving, so he can bond with his family. The next day, the family packs into their new car for the long drive to California, only to have all their luggage strapped to the top of the station wagon fall off after they back out of the garage... a bad omen of things to come. During the first day's drive, Clark and Ellen try to ease the boredom by singing old folk songs including the so-called Wally World National Anthem. Rusty and Audrey take their escape by listening to their radio Walkman's of their favorite rock group The Ramones. While stopping for gas, Clark cannot find the gas tank opening, and accidentally tears off the station wagon's license plate searching for it. Later that same day, the family arrives in St. Louis, Missouri, but after crossing the Mississippi River into the city, they get lost and end up in a rough ghetto area where some local street hoodlums steal their hubcaps and spray paint graffiti on one side of their car while giving them sham directions back to the local expressway. While driving late at night on the interstate west of St. Louis, all of the family falls asleep... including Clark driving in which their car exits the road and roars through a residential neighborhood, tearing up several yards, before stopping for the night at a local motel. Clark has planned a romantic evening at the motel with Ellen with wine and quarters for the vibrating mattress, but the mattress is loud and starts bouncing wildly. Clark pulls blankets onto the floor and they crawl under the covers, ready for sex. The kids rush in from the connecting room to investigate the noise. Rusty unplugs the bed before the kids go back to their room. On the second day of the vacation (Day 2), the family arrives in Dodge City, Kansas without further incident where Clark falls victim to another tourist trap when he insults the local bartender at a Western-themed tavern, and gets shot with a round of blanks. Back on the road, Clark is tempted by a hot young woman (Christie Brinkley) driving a flashy red 1983 Ferrari 308 GTS, with a California license place that reads LUV ME. That afternoon, the Griswolds arrive at a farm outside of Coolidge, Kansas to visit Ellen's cousin Catherine (Miriam Flynn) and her eccentric husband Eddie Johnston (Randy Quaid), and their five kids, plus one on the way, creating more tension among the Griswolds. Catherine and Eddie foist crotchety old Aunt Edna (Imogene Coca) and her vicious dog, Dinky, on the Griswolds, asking them to drop her off at her son Normy's home in Phoenix, Arizona. Eddie also asks for a loan of $500 to help him out with numerous debits he owns the local bank and many bill collectors. The kids have better experiences with Eddie and Catherine's eldest kids. Cousin Vicki (Jane Krakowski) shows Audrey her secret pot stash, while Cousin Dale (John Navin) shows Rusty his secret porn magazine collection. The next day (Day 3), the Griswolds along with Aunt Edna and Dinky drive off. During a picnic stop in Colorado, Clark has another encounter with the young woman in the red Ferrari whom is parked and dancing to pop music. The Griswolds stop for the night in a run-down, dirty campground in South Fork, Colorado where they survive another tourist trap for the night as well as deal with Edna's vicious dog. The next day (Day 4), the Griswolds and Aunt Edna pack up and leave the campground for Arizona. But while packing the car, Clark forgets to untie the nasty Dinky from the car's rear bumper before leaving. Clark does not realize his error until he is pulled over by a local motorcycle cop (James Keach) to angrily inform him of his mistake that has led to the apparent death of the dog. Nevertheless, the policeman, overcome by his own memory of his childhood dog, allows Clark to proceed on his way. During the drive, Clark again sees the young woman driving the red Ferrari while everyone else is asleep. Tempted to keep speed with her, Clark accelerates & almost has an accident. Subsequently, one of the suitcases falls off the car, which contains all of Ellen's credit cards. The next day (Day 5), the family gets lost on a back road somewhere between Utah and Arizona where while Clark and Ellen argue, they accidentally drive off the road, missing a large roadblock and get into an accident, damaging the Wagon Queen Family Truckster and stranding them near Monument Valley. Clark hikes off into the desert and spends many hours wondering aimlessly in the hot and arid desert until he finds a gas station... only to find the family there after they were rescued by some local Indians whom had a camel to tow their car to the very station. After making some half-hearted repairs, the lead redneck mechanic (Mickey Jones), who also happens to be the local sheriff, intimidates/scams Clark out of all the money he has on him (over $500 for the repairs). But they manage to get to the Grand Canyon Village to check in for the night. The next day (Day 6), the frustrated Clark realizes that in reporting Ellen's lost credit cards to their hometown bank, the bank had frozen Clark's credit cards by accident and Clark cannot convince the stuffy hotel manager (James Staley) to take a $1,000 personal check to pay for their rooms for the night. With the hotel manager distracted for a few minutes when he has to answer a ringing telephone, Clark steals all the cash in the hotel's cash register, leaves behind the $1,000 check, and flees the hotel like a Wild West bank robber, grabs the family away from the scenic sight of the Grand Canyon, and speeds away. Continuing through Arizona, they find that Aunt Edna passed away in her sleep. With little options, they decide to drive to Phoenix anyway and deliver her to her son Normy's house (with the dead Aunt Edna tied to the roof of their car). When they reach Normy's home that evening in a raging thunderstorm, they discover he is out of town, and leave Edna's rigor mortised body on a lawn chair in the backyard, over Ellen's objections. Clark concedes to Ellen's request they say a prayer for the dear departed Edna. Despite all the events and the begging of Ellen and the kids, Clark is more determined than ever to get to Walley World. They check into a motel for the night where after another argument with Ellen, Clark hangs out at the motel's bar where he has a face-to-face-encounter with the beautiful young woman from the red Ferrari and they make small talk about things. The woman beckons Clark to go skinny dipping with her in the motel's swimming pool, but upon diving in, Clark screams over his reaction to the cold pool water... thus waking up the entire motel, including Ellen, Rusty, and Audrey. When the woman takes her leave, Clark goes back to apologize to Ellen who demands that Clark repay the favor by taking him back to the pool to skinny dip with her. The next day (Day 7), the family finally arrives in Los Angeles, California and arrives at Wally World... only to find that the park is closed for the next two weeks for repairs. Clark, slipping into madness seeing all the week's struggles had been for nothing, buys a realistic-looking BB gun from a local sporting goods store, returns to Wally World, and demands to a overweight and geekish park security guard named Russ Lasky (John Candy) to take them through the park; Ellen and kids follow him, attempting to placate their father. Eventually an LAPD SWAT team arrives along with park owner Roy Walley (Eddie Bracken) and they arrest the whole family. Clark manages to talk to Roy who surprisingly understands Clark's impassioned epitome of the American Vacation, describing his own memory of a less-than-enjoyable cross-country trip he took with his own family to Florida. Roy does not file charges against the Griswolds, and lets the family enjoy the park as his guests, along with the police and SWAT team who are seen riding on the park's top roller coaster attraction in the final shot of the movie. The end credits show various still photographs of the Griswolds enjoying the rest of the vacation at all the various stops they made over the course of the movie, including a final frame of them returning to Chicago via plane... having abandoned their gas-guzzling car in California.

The opening scene is a film-within-a-film of two young women watching a horror slasher film. One of them goes to the ladies room and becomes scared when she feels that someone in the ladies room is watching her. She returns to her seat and tries to tell her friend that there was a man in the ladies room stalking her. The mysterious man sits behind the young woman and waits until there is a murder on the movie screen and then stabs the woman through her seat and then makes a quick getaway into the night. Her friend soon realizes that she is dead and screams. The killer (Tom Rolfing) then boards a bus near the movie theater in Southampton, Long Island. While traveling all night, the killer dozes off and has a flashback to seven years ago; a young bride is murdered on her wedding day by the man she rejected for her current fiancé Len Gamble, a police detective. Meanwhile in the present, Detective Len Gamble investigates the murder at the movie theater and after learning from the murder victim's friend that the dead woman was going to be married, Detective Gamble concludes that the same killer from seven years ago is back and is killing brides-to-be. The killer's name is revealed to be Ray Carlton. The next morning, the killer arrives at Staten Island where he disembarks and sees from a distance university student Amy Jensen (Caitlin O'Heaney). Amy is preparing for her wedding and she sees off her husband-to-be, Phil, and his two friends who leave town for a bachelor party the weekend before the wedding. The killer begins to stalk Amy from this point on. After attending a ballet class with her friends Nancy and Joyce, Amy and her friends run into their psychology professor, Carl (James Rebhorn), with whom Joyce is having an affair. Amy leaves to go to a dress fitting, stopping to get ice cream on the way, where she notices a man following her. She is startled by Marvin (Don Scardino), her ex-boyfriend, outside the ice cream shop, on his break from his job at the local morgue. Amy then goes to the dress shop for her fitting, and as she leaves, the clerk is stabbed to death with scissors from the killer who continues stalking her. Later that night, Nancy and Joyce surprise Amy at her home with a small bachelorette party; her parents are gone for the weekend, leaving Amy in charge of her kid sister. Joyce leaves the party to Carl's house, where the two begin to have sex when the power inexplicably goes out. Carl goes to check on the electrical box, and when he returns, is stabbed to death by the killer with a chef's knife after finding Joyce's lifeless body in the bed. The following morning, Marvin arrives at Amy's house and insinuates that he wants to rekindle their relationship, and Amy expresses second thoughts over her marriage to Phil. While in the kitchen, Amy sees the mysterious man standing in her yard, and becomes frightened; she invites Marvin to come to a local amusement park with herself, Nancy, and her sister, but he declines as he has a shift at the morgue that night. Meanwhile, the police find the dressmaker's body at the shop, and detectives Frank Daley (Paul Gleason) and Len Gamble arrive to investigate. That same morning, Amy and Nancy meet Elliot (Tom Hanks), a psychology student, while jogging through a forest trail, and later attend the amusement park with him, where he questions Amy's claims of a man following her. While riding a dark ride with her sister, Amy sees Ray Carlton inside the ride, and confides in Nancy at her house that night. Amy briefly leaves to take her sister to a birthday party, leaving Nancy alone at the house. Nancy takes a shower and then puts on a record and lies down in the living room where she smokes a joint, and moments later has her throat cut by Ray with his chef's knife. When Amy returns to the house, she discovers Nancy's severed head in the fish tank, and is attacked by Ray the killer. She flees outside to her car, and struggles to drive with Ray on the roof. She crashes the car in a wooded area and runs to the nearby morgue where she finds Marvin and phones the police. Ray enters the morgue, and Detective Gamble arrives as well. Ray confronts Amy and chases her through a tunnel system in the morgue's basement. When confronted by Detective Gamble, the killer stabs him in the heart before he gets shot in his right shoulder by the detective. Neverless, the wounded killer continues to pursue Amy. Amy manages to trap the wounded killer inside a storage closet and escapes from the basement where she finds Marvin. The two flee outside to safety where police are waiting. In the final scene set some months later, Marvin and Amy are to be married, as it is implied that she cut off her marriage to Phil. As Amy sits in front of a mirror in her wedding dress, an unseen person enters the room; she stands, and approaches the camera, and says, "Phil, what are you doing here?" before she screams as the screen fades to red.