The Marquise de Sade's notorious novel has been transposed and updated to 1944. The scene is Salo, in northern Italy, when Mussolini is briefly freed from talian partisans by Nazi forces. In a remote chateau, four powerful and prominent men, leaders of the local fascist mechanism, host a group of kidnapped young men and women, expressing their ultimate desires as the world crumbles around them. Four aging courtesans relate stories of their carnal pasts, which are then acted out with the "guests" of the party. By exercising their power to degrade and destroy, the fascists illustrate how the misuses of power lead to the murder of innocents.