A small group of amateur cooks and kitchen guests discover exactly why some refer to the kitchen as the "heart of the house".

After driving husband Martin to infidelity and catching him with another, mentally unstable author Jade returns to her New Zealand home. The plan is to write a book based on the town's history, helped by the local school teacher and her college thesis protégée, and visit her father Christopher. As her editor later explains, her suspicions concerning ever more locals stem from a pathological mental condition. However, more then just paranoia comes with the horse riding incident which killed her ma, an obsessive guilt matter for her and Christopher.

A young boy is scared of the monster under his bed. He asks his 6th grade brother to swap rooms for the night as a bet that the monster really exists. Soon the brother becomes friends with the monster and discovers a whole new world of fun and games under his bed where pulling pranks on kids and other monsters is the main attraction.