Using their social status and harsh punishments, a baron (Ulrich Tukur), a doctor (Rainer Bock) and a pastor (Burghart Klaussner) rule over a small German village. One day, the doctor falls off his horse after it trips over a wire strung between two trees. More pranks follow, seemingly without reason, all directed at the village's upper class and growing increasingly more brutal with time. There are no suspects, but a local schoolteacher (Christian Friedel) has his suspicions.