The film opens with the execution of a woman accused of witchcraft in 1845 in Banfield, Massachusetts. The woman is hanged from a tree and ultimately set on fire. Before she dies, however, her spirit is bound to the body of a doll.
Many years later, disgraced journalist Gerry Fenn works a job reporting on all things strange and unusual. His latest assignment takes him to Boston, where the purported strange activity is revealed to be a teenage prank. As he’s preparing to leave, he discovers the doll, shown earlier in the movie, and purposely crushes it, accidentally setting the woman’s spirit free. Gerry later gets into an accident as he’s driving away after seeing a young girl, Alice, run across the road. He follows her to the tree from the prologue, the site where he found the doll, and hears her speak before collapsing. When he takes her to a nearby church, he learns that Alice is deaf and couldn’t have spoken. Gerry decides to stay in town to investigate what he thinks could be a real story rather than a hoax or prank.