The town was nestled near dark woods that bordered it behind the town church and cemetery, like so many older towns of the south. A young lady of voodoo upbringing had fallen in love with the younger son of a blue collar worker new to the area. His older brother, newly ordained, tricks her into meeting who she thinks is her lover in the woods with promises of elopement. But in the dark of the night he strikes her down to save his little brother’s soul and buries her there, under the twist old tree at the edge of the clearing. Distraught, her aging mother spits a curse on the town; knowing her child is dead. Soon she passes, and so, too, does the legend of the voodoo witch queen of the woods.
Years pass.
John was the local high school hero; varsity, with his foot in the door at the university on a sports scholarship. His dad, the town sheriff, and his uncle, the church reverend, were known by everyone as loved public figures. He had the heart of the high school cheer leading captain, Tiffany, and the loyalty of all the team.
It was a still Autumn night when the team gathered to welcome the newest team member, a sophomore, with a little honest scare – all in the name of innocent fun – at the town cemetery. New to the town, he didn’t know the legend of the voodoo witch queen who was reported, according to legend, to haunt the woods just beyond the graveyard, a tourist curiosity the local kids outgrew with age.
His girlfriend in ghostly dress, and his friends in place with tools for the prank, they lay in wait to spring their frightful fun on the unsuspecting mark. Instead, the unthinkable had happened. As the mists fell over the graveyard a bent and grotesque figure lurched from the tree line and attacked the kids, descending on them with inhuman speed and a shriek that would scare the very dead under their feet. Its attack swift, its only victim John.
Badly bleeding, his friends try desperately to aid him. But, before his girlfriend could fetch help down the road, the moon peeked over the tree line onto John, and to the horror of his friends, he transformed into a werewolf. When Tiffany finally brought help, one boy was dead and two others clung to life. John was nowhere to be found. That night the town would see a rush of violent, deadly attacks.
Stumbling in a blind, painful rage, John struggled to extinguish the fire in his mind that torched every
That week John is distracted and despondent. He attends his friend’s funeral, suspecting he probably had a hand in it. He can’t concentrate at school, uninterested in sports, and distant from his friends and Tiffany. He feels a nearly irresistible urge to return to the woods, and us haunted by thoughts of the young woman he met there.
No longer able to resist, and convinced answers lie beyond the tree line, John returns to the woods where he is greeted by a man with a slight English accent. He tells John the darker stories of the town, and about the curse placed on it, and all who live there, by a voodoo priestess who lived in the town many, many years ago. He takes her to meet the spirit in the woods, and the two begin to form strong bonds of affection.
Meanwhile, Tiffany feels John slipping from her, his friends, and his life. She dreams of his love, and the future she still wants with him. Alone, she cries, suspecting he may be involved with the deadly attacks in town since that night in the graveyard.
John returns to the town to be viciously interrogated by his uncle in front of his father. He is told to never go to the woods again. This inspires John to go to the hall of records in the town courthouse where he learns of all the dark secrets of the town; political shifts that have ruined and bankrupted families and driven them out for the sake of the elite few. Worse, his own father is implicated in the disappearance of a young woman whom he had been known to be romantically connected to when he was John’s age.
Bent by rage and seeking resolution for his own guilt, John releases himself
to the beast within and attacks those that he believes have caused not only the hurt and woe of the village in the woods, but also are responsible for his plight. He goes on a terrible spree but is challenged and driven back by his father, who doesn’t recognize him. 
Injured, but satisfied he’s done good by the town and for his own forgiveness John breaks into Tiffany’s family home and takes her, her parents powerless to stop him. John takes her to the woods where he reveals himself to Tiffany. Calling the village together, he sets to plan the unholy wedding ceremony where he’ll marry Tiffany and take her, as he reasons the loss of their virginity is the “ultimate sacrifice”. As the village clears out and heads to the church to break the curse, the spirit of the voodoo girl watches on, forlorn that she has been rejected yet again, and left for dead.
As the ceremony begins the townsfolk attack the church, led by John’s father, the sheriff, and his uncle the reverend. A mighty battle breaks out around the ceremony. John confronts his father and reveals himself; accusing his father of murder. John’s father argues that he never knew what happened to his high school sweetheart, the voodoo girl; that she had simply disappeared for all he knew. Desperate that his guilt might be revealed, John’s uncle rushes the pulpit, drawing a pistol at John. The sheriff tries to stop his brother from shooting his son, but John’s uncle shoves him and he falls, landing on a decorative piece of fencing, broken during the fight. It impales him just above his stomach.
The reverend whips his pistol around and fires blindly at John, but his shot is wild and instead strikes Tiffany, who falls dead. Enraged John lunges at his uncle and as he reaches out and snaps his neck, the sheriff shoots him in a vain attempt to save his brother. In this act the spell is broken and the now mortal John falls dead by his father who lays slowly succumbing to his wound.
The sheriff looks up to see his long lost love, now mortal, walking into the church in an impromptu wedding dress; as young and beautiful as he last time he had ever seen her. She kneels between her would be lover and her lost lover. The sheriff smiles and takes her hand as he dies. And as the spirits of the fallen rise from their former selves and leave the church, to disappear into the night – the final victims of the curse, she cries quietly, alone.
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