Christmas time. A group of students steal a considerable amount of money from the local Campus. They flee through the snowy woods, in what the locals refer to as the "heartland of the Beast". They seek shelter in an abandoned mine, and eventually end up feeding the Beast's gruesome needs.
A middle-class Italian family is tore apart when the father meets an old flame, the mother—a frustrated onetime actress—auditions for a play, their insecure son tries to make friends through drugs, and their underaged daughter—who has already figured out how to use sex to her advantage—does what she does best to appear on TV.
Plagued by financial problems, ne'er-do-well Guido ends up in jail after faking an armed robbery at his workplace. A year later, just a few days before his release, he's forced by two dangerous inmates to take part in their jailbreak. On the run, Guido sets out to find his partner Antonella, who helped him with the robbery and still has the money.