Worm

Prologue. A year prior, Bella meets George at a house party in London. After engaging in some flirtatious conversation, they head back to hers and become intimate. Shortly after, they start dating. We cut to a year later when the pair head to George's family home on Holyhead Island in North West Wales to celebrate their first anniversary. During their stay, Bella plans to work remotely as a Motion Designer while George takes some of his annual leave.

After a long drive, they have a quiet first evening. George explains that the pipes in their en-suite bathroom get very loud during the evening. Before dinner, the two go for a walk to the beach, where George tells Bella how on a clear day you can see Ireland in the distance. After enjoying a spaghetti dinner, they lay in bed and exchange anniversary wishes as the clock strikes midnight. Just as they kiss, Bella's laptop turns on seemingly at random, but it goes unnoticed.

The next day, Bella gets up early to visit some nearby standing stones. She takes photographs to send to her colleagues. Later that morning, she receives a mysterious email and a video attachment from the email address of her ex-boyfriend and high school sweetheart, David, who drowned when they were eighteen. Bella runs a virus check and opens the video to find a series of CCTV footage showing empty locations that she frequently visits, including a local supermarket, a nearby street, and a traffic cam. After discussing with George, they decide not to contact the police, suspecting it might be a mean-spirited prank from David's brother, Tom, who never got along with Bella. George also doubts the local police's willingness to help due to their strained relationship with his family. The rest of the anniversary is spent with George preparing a lobster dinner. After the meal, they have sex, but George struggles to finish. He reassures Bella that it's not her fault. Later that night, half-asleep, Bella gazes out the window and has a dream of David falling off a cliff.

Another email arrives in Bella's inbox, containing more CCTV footage, this time with Bella in the recordings. The footage concludes with DashCam footage of the reservoir where David died. George contacts the police, who inform them that there's little they can do, but they will contact David's brother as it falls under malicious communication. After George leaves to go fishing, Tom calls Bella and claims to have no knowledge of the videos, even expressing a desire to make amends. For the first time, Bella considers that the videos might be from David himself. As the sun sets, she steps outside and releases a sorrowful cry. Later that evening, after a boozy dinner, George and Bella slowly dance. George reminds Bella of when she took care of him when he had to go to hospital after accidentally bruising his coccyx. He now wants to return the favour by looking after her and preventing anything from happening to her. They express their love for each other. October 2023

That night, Bella goes to the bathroom for a glass of water. It’s dark but, in the mirror's reflection, we see David. Yet, Bella walks past without acknowledgement and returns to bed. She then looks at her sleeping boyfriend and, for the first time, doesn't seem to recognize him. After what appears to be a POV of David walking through the home, CCTV footage of Bella's street, shows a cloudy figure, possibly David, in a window across the road. In what could be either a vision or a dream, a battered and bruised David exits a house and vomits worms onto the ground.

The following day, after a walk in the Welsh countryside, Bella opens up for the first time in their relationship about her past with David. She describes how they met at age eleven through their families, fell in love at fifteen, and invented a secret sign language. Bella shares how David died after crashing his car into a reservoir. They had previously had an argument and because of this she always felt responsible. She also mentions that on first hearing of David’s death, her immediate thought was how the relationship had run its course, a feeling that made her physically sick. For the first time in the film, we see an eighteen-year-old Bella, filmed by David.

Downstairs, George, feeling alone and jealous, starts hitting the lobster sink, enraged. That night, Bella wakes up in a trance and goes to her laptop in the kitchen. She responds to the email with a simple "Hello?" She then presses her hand and cheek against the computer screen, a vision of her and David lying together in the ferns appears. However, this vision is abruptly interrupted when a knife seemingly falls from the ceiling, sending Bella into a full-blown panic attack. George comes down to calm her, albeit somewhat forcefully, but Bella remains convinced that David is haunting her due to her perceived responsibility for his death. Eventually, she believes she sees him in the corner of the room. George holds her and encourages her to "let him die." Bella tells George she wants to sleep alone downstairs.

The following morning, George suggests that they head back to London after he completes some errands in town. He leaves, and Bella hears a sound from the house. In a daze, she goes to the bathroom, where the door closes on her. George returns with flowers and tries to make peace after a challenging twenty-four hours. However, this reconciliation is interrupted when Bella's laptop suddenly displays a video of George being close to a younger female coworker. Initially, he denies it and then admits it happened before they were officially together. Bella notices a recent tattoo on George's arm. Caught red handed and angry, George leaves to drink alone by the sea. October 2023

Through the emails, Bella communicates with David watching a webcam video of him lying in bed. The video ends with the message, "We should still be together." Bella turns and senses that David is watching her. She approaches the presence with a smile.

When George returns drunk, he confesses that the infidelity occurred in the days leading to them becoming ‘official’. After apologising and begging for forgiveness, Bella tells him it will take time for her to recover from what happened. She kisses George and then proceeds to give him a handjob. Just as he's becoming fully involved, Bella suffocates George with a pillow, leading to his death. Bella takes George's body to one of his family's boats and covers it with fishing nets. Just as she's about to leave, she hears a voice call her name.

Bella returns to the computer and responds to one of David's emails; "Do you forgive me yet?" Suddenly, we cut to her laptop's camera with Bella staring at the screen. Finally, she goes into the kitchen and picks up the same knife that we’ve seen before. The film ends with various drone shots of the island before ending at the standing stones. The camera zooms into the ancient rocks before cross-fading into computer wires.