Jessica moves into a loft on the eighth floor of a Los Angeles apartment building called The Dante. The other tenants all seem friendly at first, but when she starts witnessing horrible deaths, she must team up with her neighbor Evan (Doom) to solve the mystery -- and uncover her own connection to the place.
The lady is Mrs. Hilyard, a wealthy poetess who lives in a three-story city mansion and her cage is her elevator, which stops a dozen feet short of the main floor due to an electrical failure on a July 4th weekend. She rings her outside alarm, eventually noticed by a drunken derelict, who breaks into the house, ignores her plight and helps himself to various items and alcohol. He leaves with his loot but returns a while later with a plump prostitute and three teenage hoodlums, who proceed to terrorize Mrs. Hilyard as they wreck her home.