In a New York City club of erotic dancers, Matt Rossi and Nicky Piacenza, owners of the Starlite Talent Agency, collect their weekly commission from the establishment’s owner, Mike. While Matt’s former girl friend, Loretta, performs onstage, another dancer, Honey, is attacked and stabbed by a man in an alley, who dismembers two of her fingers. After Loretta’s performance, Matt goes backstage to give her a birthday gift. However, he leaves when he sees Loretta’s roommate and fellow stripper, Leila, flirting with her. After, he tells Nicky that he wants to rekindle his romance with Loretta. When Nicky learns that Honey was attacked, he and Matt visit the injured girl at the hospital. Honey tells them she did not see her attacker. Matt is later interrogated by detective Al Wheeler, who falsely assumes Matt is involved in illegal activities, thus perpetuating the attack. Sometime later, Matt drives Loretta home, and she expresses how much she used to love him. Meanwhile, Leila is attacked in a subway station, and her face is slashed. The attacker then writes a detailed account of the stabbing in his journal. At the hospital, a doctor tells Nicky and Matt that Leila is lucky to be alive, and the attacker meant to cause both victims a slow death, based on the location of their stab wounds. Terrified dancers begin canceling their performances, and Matt and Nicky wonder if they are being targeted. Matt remembers his former profession as a boxer; he put a competitor into a coma, and the man later died. In time, Matt approaches fellow talent agent, Lou Goldstein, and asks if he is behind the attacks. Goldstein claims to be a businessman and not a gangster. After, Detective Wheeler concludes that the attacks may not be directed at the talent agents. Matt finally gives Loretta her birthday present, expresses his love for her, and they later make love at her apartment. Elsewhere, a third dancer named Silver Chavez is stabbed, and dies from her injuries. The media begins to call the attacker the “New York Knifer.” Later, Loretta visits Leila in the hospital, and sees her friend die from her injuries. Distraught over the tragedy, Loretta begins using heroin again after years of sobriety, and begins missing work. Sometime late, one of Goldstein’s dancers is killed, and he and Matt work together to protect their girls and track down the killer. At a club, Nicky sees a man with a knife in his pocket, and, thinking he is the attacker, lures him into a kitchen, where a fight ensues. Matt joins the brawl, using his boxing expertise. In the midst of the fight, Nicky riffles through the man’s wallet and discovers he has only just arrived in New York City, and cannot be the killer. When Matt goes to Loretta’s apartment she is too drugged to answer the door. Matt continues to be haunted by causing the death of his opponent in a boxing match. In time, another dancer is murdered, and Matt is arrested for assaulting the man at the strip club. One night, as Nicky picks up his dancer girl friend, Ruby, from work, he witnesses her being attacked. Nicky saves Ruby and fights the man on the street, but the attacker is skilled in martial arts, and beats Nicky before fleeing. Elsewhere, Matt is interrogated at the police station by Wheeler and put in jail. When he is released on bail, Matt learns that Nicky is in the hospital, suffering internal bleeding in a coma. Matt later visits a Mafia leader friend named Carmine who advises Matt to find the attacker and kill him. Meanwhile, Nicky slowly recovers, and Loretta’s drug use continues. When Loretta asks Ruby for money, Ruby gives her cab fare, and directs her to go straight home. However, Loretta takes the money to her drug dealer, Jorge, where she discovers his body hanging in an alley. The attacker, laying in wait, stabs Loretta in the leg before Matt arrives, and a fight ensues. Loretta goes for help as Matt takes several hits. When Matt exercises his boxing skills, he defeats the attacker. Police officers arrive to discover that Matt has beaten the man to death. Wheeler acknowledges Matt’s heroism, and sends him home with Loretta.