Synopsis
High up north in Alaska, between the pine forests and Rockies, lies Grendossa. A small town that lives from mining, where everybody knows everybody else and the clocks tick just that little bit slower. A beautiful place, until the day two miners at the Mount Logan Mining Corporation drill an infectious fungus out of the rock. Sealed for millions of years, hidden in the slate, the spore-forming organism makes its way via their eyes into the miners' bloodstream, fastens on to their nerve endings and eats its way into its hosts' synapses. It takes complete control in the shortest possible time. Unaware of the danger they carry within, the men bring the death-dealing parasite to the surface. The infected try desperately to wash the slimy spores from their bodies but the life form has already switched off all human feelings. A bloody fight erupts, at the end of which bodies block the entrance to the Mount Logan Mining Corporation. Spores, living on in the blood, flow through the mine's wastewater system into the town's drinking supply. Nobody is aware this morning that the life they have known till now will change forever. A deadly danger sweeps over the small town. Just one drink of water is enough for the fungus to turn its host into an obedient "Sporehead." It's only through a sequence of lucky events a small group of seven people in "Tim Dick's Diner' - among them Sheriff Noah Davis - remains spared from the parasites' attack. He and the other guests are still enjoying their breakfast, arguing about petty, everyday things, pondering their future, not knowing what is going on outside the restaurant's walls. The same goes for Darren Sato, a stranger passing through, sitting in a corner of the diner, reflecting on his wife and her lover, whom he has just murdered. He, too, doesn't yet know his escape will come to such a sudden and unforeseen end here, in the middle of the Alaskan nowhere. Just a few miles away, on the one access road to town, a bridge, a catastrophic accident occurs, during which a truck with several tons of gasoline explodes, cutting off the one connection with the outside world and taking the road away with it. Deputy Stewie Doll is trying vainly to master the situation when the huge fireball has the group in the diner jumping out of their seats. The Sporeheads have continued to mutate and the grotesque rabble of deformed victims has ganged together. The life form in them has only one aim: to escape from the wilderness and carry the bloody germs into the world. The people trapped in the diner only just survived the first wave of attack. Seeking safety they barricade themselves in the rear of the restaurant. At this point they realize they have to fight their own families. After holding out for hours they hear from Jasmine, Evan Hardwick's wife. She was able to save herself from the aggressive horde by escaping from her apartment into the basement. This means Jasmine and the naive Deputy Stewie Doll become their last hope. They decide to risk a breakout at dawn, but one of their number, a mother, gets infected. They have to make a momentous decision, one that will determine if they survive or not. Darren Sato shoulders the burden, kills the woman and saves the group. But shortly afterwards Jasmine's rescue attempt ends in disaster. The surviving members of the group are now deeply torn, and a Sporehead lurks at every crossing, in every house and behind every tree. Over and over they have to defend themselves from the constantly growing number of infected, and only the hope they can send a distress call from the old "Radio K7B" station keeps them going. A cable railway is their last hope, at the same time a link to the summit and a deathtrap. The last members of the group sacrifice themselves to save the pregnant woman among them. They take on the Sporeheads at dizzying height. Their hope of giving the unborn child a chance leads them to perform superhuman feats. Their selflessness and iron resolve finally save the woman and child.
But none of them could have known the spores are now one step closer to their goal...