In an unlit store, a shadowy figure steals clothes and a crossbow. Melody and her friend Susie get jobs at the new mall, just before its scheduled grand opening. The shadowy Eric, his face half scarred, excitedly sees Melody, his former girlfriend, from hidden vantage points around the mall, and leaves flowers and gifts for her. He breaks open a mannequin head to fashion a half-mask. When a mall maintenance worker spots Eric in the ventilation ducts, Eric kills him by forcing his head into a running fan. Eric attacks anyone who threatens Melody; he kills a guard, who spies on women in the dressing room via mall security video, by crushing him into an electrical panel using a forklift. A masked mugger attacks Melody in the parking lot, but Eric shoots him with the crossbow. Later the mugger is revealed to be the mall pianist; Eric kills him on the toilet with a poisonous snake. The mall owner's son, Justin, harasses Melody's friend Susie; Eric kills him with a lasso pulled into the mall escalator. Reporter Peter Baldwin becomes interested in Melody, investigates the suspicious fire, and with Melody, Susie and pal Buzz, tries to learn if Eric is still alive. A year earlier, Eric Matthews' house was destroyed in a suspicious fire which apparently trapped and killed him, just after he saved his girlfriend Melody. Now, a year later, in the mall built over the site of his home, Eric plants a time-delay bomb beneath the mall, timed to coincide with the mall's grand opening.