When the film was in production, it was titled The Velvet Side of Hell. When Sony picked up the rights to distribute it, it was re-titled 8mm 2.

Engaged couple Tish and David (Heuring and Schaech) take a short vacation to Budapest. David is counsel to Tish's father, an ambassador who does not approve of their relationship, although this does not affect Tish and David's relationship. While in Budapest, the two indulge in many sex acts, eventually engaging in a threesome with another woman, Risa. The sexual tryst becomes a personal issue when they receive a letter containing pictures of the menage a trois. Realizing this escapade could ruin their careers, as well as the career of Tish's father, they venture deep into Budapest to find the other woman. On their journey, they find the hotel they were living in's housekeeper (who had told them about the woman) to be the blackmailer.

He demands a sum of $200,000 for the pictures he had taken. At the meeting, he grabs Tish and runs off, he eventually lets her go and continues to run on his own, then David and the man begin to shoot at each other. Later, they find the man shot dead in his apartment (they think they were the murderers). A policemen later contacts them and seems to be suspecting them of murdering the man. After a while they find the women dead in her apartment, then they thought the entire ordeal was over. Just as they begin to celebrate, another mysterious man calls them and demands $1,000,000 in exchange for the pictures, which they agree to pay through Tish's contacts and through the help of the policemen they met. They arranged to meet at an old warehouse, where they do not see the man.

David tells Tish to stay in the car while he goes looking for the man inside, handing Tish a gun. After David disappears into the warehouse, the policeman (who had been following them) appears at Tish's side of the car and knocks on the window. She informs him that the man said there should be no police, however he says if she wants to see David exit the building alive, she will let him go. After a while Tish hears gunfire and runs into the building, and shoots at an SUV which is exiting the warehouse. She then finds the policeman dead inside. Later the mysterious man calls he again and says he has David, and demands a sum of $5,000,000 for his safe return, otherwise he will kill him, she agrees and pays the money.

The man informs her that David is tied up and dying in the basement of a store in Budapest, Tish eventually finds it and sees David tied up in the basement, with limited oxygen being fed to him through a mask of sorts. Thereafter they both continue their lives together without interference from the man again. When Christmas came, Tish and her siblings went shopping in the city, and planned on going to have drinks with David, however David calls Tish and informs her he will be working late. Tish decides she will then do some further shopping and meet David at home. That night when she boards a subway train, she notices in the train-car on the rails next to hers, that a porn-store owner David knows, a Russian pimp she had tried to work for, the woman they had a threesome with, the policeman, and the hotel's housekeeper were all sitting there with smiles on their faces, she then notices David entering the car with them. It was then clear to her that they plotted everything to get their hands on the $6,000,000 she had given them throughout the events.