A science fiction riff on the myth of Bluebeard, in which a young wife is admonished by her extremely wealthy, brilliant scientist husband not to enter one particular room in his estate.
Newlywed Elizabeth (Abbey Lee) arrives with her brilliant scientist husband Henry (Ciarán Hinds) to his magnificent estate, where he wows her with lavish dinners and a dazzling tour of the property. The house staff Claire (Carla Gugino) and Oliver (Matthew Beard) treat her differently but she can't shake the feeling something is off. Henry explains that everything in his world now belongs to her, all is for her to play in - all except for a locked-off room he forbids her from entering. When he goes away for business, Elizabeth decides to investigate.
Elizabeth (Abbey Lee), a new bride, is brought home by her husband Henry (Ciaran Hinds) on their wedding day. The home is palatial and staffed only by two workers, the enigmatic Claire (Carla Gugino) and blind Oliver (Matthew Beard), who view her as a curiosity. Elizabeth's life is initially idyllic, and Henry tells her that she can enter any room save one, located in the basement, before leaving for work.
Initially entertained by clothing, jewelry, and the house's luxuries, Elizabeth's curiosity gets the better of her and she explores the forbidden room, where she discovers clones of herself. She runs out of the room in a panic, leaving the door open. When Henry returns home, he quickly surmises her deceit and murders Elizabeth. Claire and Oliver help him to dispose of her corpse in a shallow grave in the grounds.Six weeks later, another "Elizabeth" is traveling home with Henry after their wedding, exactly as before. The new Elizabeth goes through the same experiences, also discovering the room with the clones, except she manages to kill Henry before he can kill her.
Her deceit is quickly discovered by Oliver and Claire, the latter of whom immediately suffers a heart attack and is whisked away to the hospital. Left alone with Elizabeth, Oliver blackmails her into staying by claiming that she would be quickly arrested for Henry's murder if she left and that he can only protect her is she remains. Oliver even goes as far as murdering a police officer and friend of Henry's that comes to investigate a call for help Elizabeth had made the night before, which the two claim was instead made by Claire.
Aware that Henry has been creating clones but wanting to know the full truth of what went on in the house, Oliver imprisons Elizabeth in a room and forces her to read Claire's diary. Through this it's revealed that Claire and Henry were brilliant scientists who sought to clone Henry's dead wife Elizabeth.The wife suffered from a genetic defect and died because of it. Henry cloned her but the cloned also inherited the defect, which is why Henry brought in Claire, to try and help him rid the clones of the genetic defect. The initial attempts at cloning are unsuccessful, as the first clone is unable to remember anything & is easily disoriented and dies by what Henry claims is an accidental suffocation during her sleep.
Eventually the cloning is met with limited success as the Elizabeth clones are able to retain some of the original Elizabeth's memories during the cloning process but are still childlike and innocent. Including the ones who have been killed, Henry and Claire have officially awoken five clones, the fifth being the current Elizabeth.The journal also reveals Claire's suspicions that Oliver is actually a clone of Henry, and that when she confronted Henry with this revelation, he did not deny it.
When Elizabeth tells Oliver this, he states that Henry blinded him out of jealousy when he was a child, not liking Oliver's growing friendship with one of the other child clones, and after he had confronted Henry about molesting one of them.It is shown that Oliver is in the process of waking the 6th clone.
Elizabeth 5 details this to Oliver, who states that Henry blinded him out of jealousy because of the way Oliver looked at some of the other Elizabeth clones. Oliver is then seduced by Elizabeth 5 in a successful attempt to get him to lower his guard, only for a new Elizabeth clone to appear holding a shot gun. Confused and unaware of what had been going on, the new clone shoots and kills Oliver by accident. Elizabeth 5 manages to make it outside, where she is shot and killed by the new clone, only just managing to whisper something to the clone before her death.
The new (and final) Elizabeth reads the journal which tells how Henry and Claire initially met, and details their work together on the cloning experimentsA flashback is shown depicting Henry and Claire discussing the cloning experiments. She discovers that he is now just trying to relive his wedding night and then sadistically murder the clones, which he claims is without consequence due to his real wife dying years ago. He also does not view them as real except in the moment of their death, which horrifies Claire. He tells her that her contract has been re-negotiated, which would eventually place the house and his belongings in her name so that she can continue her research.
Recovered from her heart attack, Claire returns to the house from the hospital. The last Elizabeth clone gives her the journal and tells Claire to put her research to better use. Then Elizabeth leaves to start life on her own.
