In Haiti, photographer Victor Fielding and his pregnant wife Sorenne, blessed by a voodoo practitioner, are on their honeymoon until a massive earthquake ensues. Sorenne is gravely injured, and paramedics tell Victor he must choose to save either his wife or child.Thirteen years later, Victor has lost faith in God since Sorenne's death, and raises his daughter Angela by himself in Georgia. One day after school, Angela ventures into the woods with her Baptist best friend Katherine West to perform a séance, attempting to contact Angela's mother. The girls go missing and a three-day manhunt ensues.The girls are found in a barn on the third day; though traumatized, they seem relatively normal, having suffered only burns to their feet. The next day at home, Angela attacks Victor and begins convulsing, while Katherine has an outburst during a church service where the sacrament of Holy Communion is celebrated. Victor admits Angela into the hospital where their nurse neighbor Ann attends to her. Katherine's mother, Miranda, begins to theorize that the girls traveled to Hell and brought a demon back with them.The girls' conditions worsen. Ann, convinced that Angela is possessed after the latter reveals knowledge of Ann's experience in the novitiate as a prospective nun and her secret abortion, gives Victor a memoir