A young woman doctor discovers something sinister going on in her hospital. Relatively healthy patients are having ‘complications’ during simple operations and ending up in comas. The patients are then shipped off to an institute that looks after them. The young doctor suspects there is more to this than meets the eye.

In a futuristic world that has embraced ape slavery, Caesar, the son of the late simians Cornelius and Zira, surfaces after almost twenty years of hiding out from the authorities, and prepares for a slave revolt against humanity.

Determined to pull in the Pulitzer Prize, reporter Johnny Barrett will go to any length necessary to win the coveted award. When he learns of an unsolved murder committed at a mental institution, Barrett devises a scheme to solve it and earn himself recognition. With the assistance of a psychiatrist and his girlfriend, Barrett convinces the doctors at the institution to commit him. Once inside, he begins his investigation — and gradually loses his mind.