Summaries

Synopsis

The movies opens with an American girl, Kristie [Laura Harris] being shot at the ocean shore and falling into the surf. She awakens in the hospital and Father Mulin [Peter Waddington] is with her. He asks if she wishes to be forgiven; initially unable to speak, she squeezes his hand. She then tells the story in flashback. After a fairy tale romance and wedding, she marries dashing Englishman Marc St. Clair [Richard Lintern]. The wedding occurs on a full moon, which he tells her is perfect for fertility and is no chance; it was the result of years of planning. He takes her to a dark and windy outcropping of rock. She is frightened and wants to go back, but he begins kissing her and she becomes faint. As she passes out, her wedding dress is pushed up and a man is making love to her; she sees his bare chest, which covered with scars. Kristie becomes pregnant and gives birth to a beautiful dark haired son, Dylan [Alec Roe-Brown]. Coincidental with Dylan's delivery, the 6 year old son of the TV station owner is shown being led into a dark place, where he touches a Bible embossed with an inverted cross; he is later found murdered. There are flashes of the same runes that Kristie saw on the stones. After a difficult delivery, Dylan is born healthy and his idyllic childhood is shown in glimpses of home videos, where they live on the Isle of Man. In a bathtub scene, young Dylan is seen wearing a crucifix, which is giving him a red rash; Marc removes it. In another scene, Dylan quits playing card game concentration because it is too easy.

Later, Kristie becomes concerned about Dylan's increasingly violent behavior, which includes the impaling of his pet guinea pig on a stake and his annoyance at her saving a friend of his from an impending accident on the playground. Kristie cannot understand how her son, who she had focused so much energy and love on since he was born, could have turned out to be so heartless.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Plummer [Alice Krige], the wife of the TV station owner and whose son as murdered the night Dylan was born, is trying to replace Kristie and keep her away from Marc and Dylan as often as possible. She sabotages Kristie's trip home on Christmas and strands Kristie at an airport so she can come and spend Christmas with Marc (whom she kisses) and Dylan. Elizabeth and Marc take Dylan to the room with a large inverted wooden cross. After looking at the cross, Dylan says, "Youre not my father," and Marc says, "No, Im not."

On the road to the house from the airport, a strange cab driver (who we later learn is named Carmac) begins telling Kristie that 2,000 years after the birth of Jesus Christ, suppose the devil wants to have a turn and he also needs a virgin, but that, like God, he doesn't tell the woman in advance. He then calls Kristie by name, telling her it has already happened and only Kristie can stop him. Surprised that he cab driver knows her name, Kristie demands to be let out of the cab.

Kristie arrives at home to be told that the family dog has bitten Dylan; Marc demands it be put down, or he will do it himself. Kristie takes the dog, purporting to have it put down, but plans to avoid this fate. She takes the dog to the home of a friend, Lynnette, only to find Lynnette murdered, bleeding and hung in a plastic bag. Returning home, Kristie finds Dylan is completely apathetic. Kristie then receives a phone call from the veterinarian, saying the dog had been to sleep (at Marcs instructions).

Carmac [Francis Magee] then appears unexpectedly when Kristie is at a cemetery. He introduces himself and reminds her about he told her about the Virgin Mary; No one ever told her. "Its time someone told you," he says. Carmac then departs and Kristie finds he has left her a business card and a rock (Amber) with Celtic writing on parchment in it, wrapped in a distinctive cloth. She meets with a university professor who explains some of the words and who offers to take a closer look. Kristie looks up at the TV to see that Marc had brought Dylan as a guest on his TV show. Dylan demonstrates that he can talk backwards. Kristie abruptly leaves the pub and a man stares at the screen while Dylan talks backwards. Kristie confronts Marc, Elizabeth and Dylan at his office. They all claim Kristie knew he would be on the show, while Kristie denies even knowing that Dylan could talk backwards.

The movies cuts to the professor's lab where says he has made a discovery. He tries to telephone Kristie but the phone goes dead and his office lights go out. He walks into a classroom to find a woman spray painting on a blackboard; the man from the pub also appears behind the professor and says, "We heard the calling."

After dinner with Marc at a restaurant, Kristie is awakened by knocking at the door. She goes downstairs and looks through the peep hole to see the professor. She opens the door and the man from the pub (and later, the professor's office) is standing there, holding the professor's decapitated head. Kristie faints and the man steps back, holding the head up to Dylan's window; Dylan gestures to the man to be silent.

In the next scene, Kristie is in a parked car with Dylan. She asks if the dog really bit Dylan; he is silent. She asks if Dylan's father did anything to hurt him; Dylan replies that she doesn't know his father. Just then, the woman who had been spray-painting in the university classroom commits suicide by falling from a water tower, where she lands on the windshield of Kristies car. Dylan takes from her dead hand the amber with the Celtic parchment, wrapped in the cloth as Carmac had left it for Kristie at the cemetery.

Kristie then calls on Carmac to get more answers. She gives him the amber and asks him what it means. She asks how she can save her son. He hands her a Bible and tells her there is another book, of which the parchment is a fragment; and that she "got pregnant on your wedding night, and certainly not by your husband." Carmac tells her that on the day Dylan was born, Marc killed his first born son (Sammy Plummer, the station owner's son) and that Dylan is not Marc's son. At night, Kristie goes to the TV station to review the tapes of Marc's reporting of Sammy's death, here she learns that Sammy's heart was cut out (contrary to what Marc had told her earlier). Marc unexpectedly comes to the station and discovers Kristie reviewing the tape of his report. He denies her accusation that Sammy was his son; Kristie accuses him of lying and flees the station with Dylan in the car. Dylan tries to stop Kristie and the car crashes. Kristie brings the unconscious Dylan to a church and asks the reverend [Roger Brierly] to baptize him. The reverend goes to call the police. While he is gone, Dylan awakens. Sunlight begins to shine through the church's stained glass windows and on the statues. Dylan screams in pain, just as the police arrive with Marc, who takes Dylan away.

The movie cuts to Kristie in her hospital bed. She tells Father Mulin that the false prophet, who is the mouthpiece of the Antichrist, is television, with its reporting of news. The movie returns to the flashback, where Kristie says that everyone on the island believes she is "mad." Kristie tries to make amends with Marc, but Dylan starts throwing stones at her and Marc tells her to leave. Kristie recounts that Marc filed for sole custody of Dylan. Despondent and feeling that everything seemed to be her fault, Kristie packs and decides to return to the states when, on her way out, she sees Lynette's earring on the ground of her property. Another flashback shows Lynette discovering Marc and Elizabeth nailing a willing Dylan upside down to the large cross previously shown in an earlier scene. Lynnette tries to flee but is caught and killed by Marc. Kristie tries to convince the police to investigate to no avail.

She decides to go to the masked ball birthday party for Dylan being hosted by Elizabeth Plummer and her husband. She finds it is a black mass orgy. Dylan stares as a chain holding a fluorescent light over a hot tub; at the stroke of midnight, the chain breaks and the light falls into the hot tub, electrocuting a man in the hot tub, who had previously been fondling two bare-breasted women. Everyone applauds Dylan's accomplishment. It is later revealed the man is Elizabeth's husband, Jack Plummer.

Kristie flees and is met by Carmac, who drives her to the beach. He tells Kristie she has to drown Dylan because they have inverted the sacraments. Armed with a rifle, Carmac and Kristie enter the Plummer mansion. They find everyone asleep, including Marc, with Elizabeth lying in his arms. They take Dylan to the shore, where Carmac tells Kristie that she alone must drown Dylan. She starts to carry him into the water and tries to drown him in the surf, reciting the Hail Mary. She wavers and Carmac enters the water and helps her. Kristie stands up in the water and faces the beach, where the coven members are assembled, with Elizabeth standing by Marc's side. Marc points a shotgun at Kristie and fires.

The movie resumes with the priest in Kristie's hospital room, asking why the coven waited until Kristie had finished and why they wanted the Antichrist dead. The priest asks for Kristie's confession, and she says she has nothing to confess. The priest tells her she is asking too much and leaves the hospital.

The movie cuts to a live newscast of Dylan's funeral procession, which Kristie watches on TV from her hospital bed. It turns out to be Easter Sunday. The priest officiating at the funeral discusses Christ's resurrection. The camera pans the mourners and Kristie sees Carmac. Carmac's voice-over mentions "the rules of the game." During the ceremony a dark storm occurs and a raven sits on a tombstone. The earth shakes and people seek shelter, except for Carmac, who tears open his shirt and stretches out his arms to the storm. Kristie sees the same scars on Carmac's chest that she remembers from having sex on her wedding night, and Carmac is revealed to be Dylan's father. It is further revealed that the coven members were all gathered around Kristie and Carmac for the occasion. The storm subsides and Dylan is found to be alive in his coffin, pounding on the inside for release, despite being pronounced dead three days ago. On TV, Dylan says to his mother that he is not mad at her any more and he needs her. She says "go to hell" to the TV and Dylan apparently hears her, because he looks at one of the mourners, who then goes to the hospital intending to shoot Kristie. However, she has fled in a car driven by Father Mullin. Meanwhile, the TV talks of the event as being a "resurrection" and that the Vatican is getting involved.

As they drive away, Father Mullin removes his collar, kisses it, and throws it out the window of the moving car. It is picked up by a man on a motorcycle who is following them--the same man that came to Kristie's door with the professor's head. It is unclear whether Father Mullin discarded his collar because, as Kristie says to him, it is a "new time," or whether he did so to aid the man in following them.