| Director | Ulli Lommel |
|---|
On November 7, 1683 in Devonsville, Massachusetts, three womenJessica Morley, Mary Pratt, and Rebecca Carsonare kidnapped by the townsfolk based on accusations of witchcraft. Jessica is disemboweled by hogs, and Mary is killed with a breaking wheel. Rebecca, the last to die, is burned at the stake. After Rebecca's execution, her apparition appears in the sky and a thunderstorm begins.
Three hundred years later, Devonsville remains a small, conservative farming community far from major cities. The killing of the three women as witches has become known as the Devonsville Inquisition. The local town doctor, Dr. Warley, is investigating the witches' purported curse on Devonsville; he also finds himself plagued by a bizarre illness in which worms crawl from his skin, an apparent curse linked to his ancestors' involvement in the inquisition. Meanwhile, three liberated, assertive women move to the town: Jenny Scanlon, the new schoolteacher; Chris, an environmental scientist; and Monica, a radio disc jockey. Their presence angers the town's bigoted patriarchs, among them Walter Gibbs, a middle-aged store owner who has recently murdered his sick wife, Sarah. While a medical examination shows that Sarah was killed rather than dying of natural causes, Dr. Warley provides a death certificate certifying natural causes so Walter can collect the insurance payout. Upon Jenny's arrival in town, she is greeted by brothers Ralph and Matthew Pendleton, both of whom are friendly. Later that night in his store, Walter witnesses an apparition of a nude Jenny. Ralph Pendleton meets with Dr. Warley for an annual checkup and Warley uses hypnosis to examine Ralph's links to the inquisition. Ralph states that his ancestor accused Jessica of witchcraft for spurning his sexual advances.
Jenny infuriates the local parents when she tells her class that God was considered a female in Babylonian times, and that God's representation as a father figure was introduced with Judaism. Chris is investigating the water quality at a local lake that the town's sewage dumps into. This causes the townspeople to fear that she will claim they are destroying the local environment. Monica hosts a radio call-in show where she often gives advice to female callers inquiring about relationship problems. This angers several men in the town who believe Monica is subverting their authority and corrupting local women with progressive ideas. Walter becomes romantically obsessed with Jenny, but she turns down his advances at his store one night. He then has a nightmare in which Jenny reveals to him that she knows that he murdered Sarah, before drowning him in a bog. Jenny visits Dr. Warley for her insomnia, and Warley suspects Jenny is one of the three witches reincarnated. Under hypnosis, Jenny states she is not a witch but actually a "messenger from the unknown."
Convinced that Jenny, Chris, and Monica are the witches reincarnated, Walter persuades a group including Matthew to kidnap each of the women one night. Chris is taken into the woods, bound and killed by hunting dogs, mirroring the death of Jessica. Monica is taken from her radio station and dragged behind a truck, mirroring the death of Mary. Jenny is kidnapped from her home and bound to a stake. The group recreates the Devonsville Inquisition and threatens to burn Jenny like Rebecca. However, Jenny unleashes her power, kills them all violently with a seemingly supernatural power and releases herself from her bindings. The next morning, Jenny boards a bus leaving Devonsville. A postscript intertitle from Dr. Warley's journal states that the curse has been lifted and the Devonsville terror is over.