An epidemic of appliance madness unrelated to discount sales strikes an island off the coast of France: the islanders are being murderously attacked by ovens and refrigerators acquired in the same department store. Enter the young Dr. Gabrielle Martin (Anny Duperey), who arrives here to escape her own personal tragedy and instead lands in the middle of the kitchen mania. She tracks down the cause of the rapidly spreading epidemic to another doctor on the island — quite as insane as any of the kitchen appliances (if the comparison could be made) — and finds that the villainous doctor and the appliances have a most unusual link. Graphic scenes of mutilation by an oven, as one example, leave nothing much to the imagination in this film, but the interpretations of actors Anny Duperey and Jean-Claude Brialy as the good and evil doctors are excellent.

Four young people, tired of working life, decide that they can earn money from crime than they can from work. The film follows their training at the first "crime school", as well as their work.

The film is a road movie that follows a middle aged man who gives a young woman a lift. On the car radio, news bulletins warn the population against a recently escaped sadist who is known to prey on young women and children. Lelouch often cuts away from the main story, if only briefly, to parallel events that are not necessarily crucial to the story but illustrate what is suggested by the radio.