Caroline (Kate Hudson) is a twenty-five-year-old hospice worker who cares for the ailing and the elderly, a job designed to atone for her own mistake for ignoring her dying father in the past, when she had been a rock 'n' roll manager. After her latest charge passes away, Caroline takes a job in Louisiana, caring for Ben (John Hurt), a stroke-victim who is bed-ridden and cannot speak. But Caroline becomes suspicious of the house, and Ben's cold wife, Violet (Gena Rowlands) only adds to the creepy atmosphere. After acquiring a skeleton key, Caroline makes her way into a secret room within the attic where she discovers hair, blood, bones, spells, and other instruments for practicing voodoo. Violet says she has never been in the secret room, but that the items probably belonged to the original owners' two houseworkers, who practiced black magic and were lynched as a result. Noting that Ben had his stroke in the attic after entering the room, Caroline is determined to unlock the secrets of the house, and rescue Ben from the horrors that hold him captive within.