Sam Wentworth is not sure about his new friends. On his first day at a new school, Sam is surprised to fall in with the popular crowd—it's all because he plays the same online video game as some of the football players. Still, he's bothered by the way they bully other gamers. When they get their hands on a pirated copy of The 13th Floor, a game banned for violence and gore, Sam and his new friends find the game so hypnotic that they can't stop playing, even after bad things start happening to them.