Lilico (Erika Sawajiri) is Japan’s top model. She graces billboards and magazine spreads, appears regularly on variety shows and dramas, and is the envy of every high school girl across the country. She is also, with the exception of her fingernails and a couple other parts, entirely fake. Created with the most advanced plastic surgery methods organized by her savvy and manipulating manager (Kaori Momoi), Lilico is a star on the verge of elite status, eagerly awaiting her reign as queen of the celebrity world. But as her own manufactured body begins to deteriorate, she begins to lash out at and torment her social circle, particularly her infatuated assistant (Shinobu Terajima). When a philosophical prosecutor (Nao Omori) begins to collect evidence of medical malpractice stemming from the grisly suicides of models whose bodies have been destroyed by similar surgeries, Lilico’s life truly begins to unravel in spectacular fashion. Based on Kyoko Okazaki’s eponymous award-winning manga (which was the 2004 Grand Winner of the Tezuka Osama Cultural Prize), Helter Skelter has the bright sets and colorful palette of Ninagawa’s Sakuran, but with some kinky sex and macabre violence thrown in for good measure. As a kinetic look at celebrity culture and the fashion industry, the mix of black humor and gaudy melodrama makes for a satire that is appropriately in your face.

芸能界の頂点に君臨するトップスターりりこ。雑誌、テレビ、映画—日本中どこを見ても、りりこ！りりこ！ りりこ一色！ しかし、りりこには誰にも言えない秘密があった―。
彼女は全身整形。「目ん玉と爪と髪と耳とアソコ」以外は全部つくりもの。その秘密は世の中を騒然とさせり【事件】へと繋がっていく―。
整形手術の後遺症がりりこの身体を蝕み始める。美容クリニックの隠された犯罪を追う者たちの影がちらつく。さらには、結婚を狙っていた御曹司の別の女との婚約スクープ！ 生まれたままの美しさでトップスターの座を脅かす後輩モデルの登場。そして、ついに…！
究極の美の崩壊と、頂点から転落する恐怖に追い詰められ、現実と悪夢の狭間をさまようりりこは、芸能界を、東京を、日本中を、スキャンダラスに、めちゃくちゃに疾走する。りりこが【冒険】の果てに辿りつく世界とは？ 最後に笑うのは誰？