Dr. Ben Cahill, a fine city doctor, gets so stressed by marital problems and alcohol that he freezes up under pressure in the emergency room. To get his act back together, he decides to unwind a few months in the house he and his ex bought on Orr island, an insignificant (former) fishermen place off the coast of Maine. He almost immediately becomes the butt of spite from a gang of local nobodies. After the doctor started examining, at the request of the reasonable sheriff Hobbs who leans to his side, some animal and human corpses with strange internal as well as external injuries, one of the brutes, not so handy handyman Jack Wald, has a fatal nocturnal accident crashing into Dr. Cahill's car. The doc observes one of the red cockroaches which recently infest the island has pincers, most unusual, reads up and contacts the university entomology department, where this African species isn't too well-known either. Jack's even dumber brother Eamon Wald uses violence which ends up causing the sheriff's death, so the doc has no other help then the enterprising local store clerk Nell Bartle, who takes a liking to the only educated men around, to continue investigating fighting off Eamon's gang and as they find out how bad the danger is, try to evacuate... 感觉还能接受。 凯修到缅因州的歌尔斯岛度假，这个远离尘嚣的小岛上居民不多，而凯修的到来显然不被岛民所接受，除了小学生物课女教师妮尔肯帮他外，其余人都很排拆凯修。另外，自从凯修来到岛上之后便不断有人神秘死亡，岛上警长以为是意外，但身为外科医生的凯修发现受害者的尸体都有被虫咬过的痕迹，于是和妮尔一起着手展开调查，并将虫体送到美国本土的医学院研究，没想到这些骇人听闻的蟑螂竟是来自遥远的非洲稀有品种，它们利用人类的身体作为繁衍的巢穴，而且有强大的破坏力，任何人，畜都不能避免。 由于蟑螂的快速繁衍，没多久歌尔斯岛上已经被成千上万的蟑螂入侵，而且居民们一个个都被蟑螂吃掉，最后只剩下凯修、妮尔等几个人，他们与恐怖的吃人蟑螂展开了大对决！
