A young woman is employed as a waitress at the party of an important architect. There she meets his motherless children. When his father realizes the good relationship established within the children and her, he offers her to work as nanny for the holidays. Although their relationship is very tight at first, soon they find an irreplaceable emotional bond.

In Knockemstiff, Ohio and its neighboring backwoods, sinister characters converge around young Arvin Russell as he fights the evil forces that threaten him and his family.