1984. Angola, Indiana. Professional machinist and amateur inventor Dick Draven loses his wife in a car accident, leaving him to raise their three children alone until a paranormal disturbance in his house causes him to reconsider the ethereal destination of his wife, safety of his children, and his career. It begins with his little girl Allie seeing her deceased mother in her bedroom at night, a picture falling off the wall, and the stench of rotten meat. Then the paranormal activity escalates with freezing pockets of air, floating reading glasses, and hallucinations of the macabre.
When the Catholic Church requires evidence of a haunting to determine their involvement Dick enlists the help of local clairvoyant Genesis Jackson as he fumbles through the uncertainty of becoming a rookie paranormal investigator by default: tiptoeing through his powerless, dark house as he listens for anomalies through a parabolic microphone while his VHS recorder films the basement door. But what he unearths is no simple ghost. Suddenly the hauntings become more aggresive and dangerous. The doors of the house lock on their own, hard objects fly through the air and bloody his son Dax's nose, footprints sizzle in spilled holy water, and Dick hears his older daughter Jenny plead for help through the radio. Despite indications that one of his inventions could be the instrument that expels the malevolent presence, conventional methods of paranormal investigation continue to influence Dick to the point that his time might run out before he realizes it.