The film opens on Shelley, a college student, sitting outside a Japanese style house near a koi pond. Her pet cat is near the pond, and after hearing a strange noise there, Shelley goes to investigate. A hand reaches out of the pond and grabs Shelley, pulling her under. Seconds later, the same hand drags the cat down to its death. A red hard candy floats to the surface of the pond.
The film revolves around a group of kids living on the same block. The Kids are named Tommy, Sofia, and Ralph and are being haunted by a talking black red eyed dog named Labby, that takes them on a hellish ride through between dimension and time periods. The first segment is called Tainted Milk, the second is called Liquid Memories, and the last segment is called The Mask That the Monster Wears.
A young boy named Karl Berger (a surname given in the sequel) murders his abusive mother with a meat cleaver, after she beats him for returning home late. Twenty years later, in the mid-1970s, the imprisoned Karl is being transported to an unspecified location by the police, but manages to kill his captors and escape into the wilderness, somehow acquiring a cleaver in the process. Over the course of several days, Karl commits a series of murders across the countryside, mutilating and occasionally cannibalizing his victims. After one double homicide, Karl faints and has a flashback to the day he murdered his mother, revealing he had been coerced into killing her by a demon (which a line of dialogue indicates may be his father) he had encountered in the cellar after being locked in it.
The story begins with Tony recalling himself as a child in the 1960s at the age of four, coming from an aloof family in Trentham, Victoria. Tony's father was an agricultural labourer who suffered from alcoholism. Tony, without an older male role model, originally felt warm attachment to the other main figure in the film, his father's workmate and drinking friend Gordon Kerr. Then on one night Gordon - who was to be looking after the child - raped Tony. Tony and his younger brother continued to be sexually assaulted by Gordon for the following ten years until his parents unexpectedly saw this for themselves and were forced to acknowledge what was happening.
Returned: Child Soldiers of Nepal's Maoist Army tells the personal story of Nepali boys and girls as they attempt to rebuild their lives after fighting in the Nepalese Civil War. Through the voices of former child soldiers, the film examines why these children joined the Maoists and explores the prevention of future recruitment.