The teacher Senta falls in love with the award-winning chef Stefan, who rents out his romantic winegrower's house in southern Styria to her during the summer holidays. She soon notices that a quirky gendarmerie inspector is keeping the property under surveillance. Senta finds out too late that the policeman thinks Stefan is a multiple woman murderer and that she is trapped like bait.
Georg, who is happy with his job as a scientist, with his loving wife and with his three children, hears one day that an accident has happened in a chemical plant nearby. All of a sudden, he finds himself face to face with one of the victims. The man, whose face has been eaten away by the sour gas that escaped from the plant, is staring at him in despair. Does Georg really see the man or is this a mere hallucination? Is he becoming insane or is he more alert to the dangers of the world than the common man?