Gallows Hill

Margot Hull attends the funeral of her estranged parents, Hugh and Maria Hull, whom she has not seen since being sent to live with her grandmother at age eight. She has no memory of them or her childhood home, Gallows Hill. The service is strangely somber and tearless, with closed caskets and no eulogies. Having had a brief, disturbing private viewing of the bodies, Margot is suspicious of the official cause of death, simultaneous heart attacks. An elderly woman cryptically apologizes to Margot for being sick and missing an appointment on the Friday her parents died. After the service, Margot meets Kant, her parents' long-time winery manager. He arranged the funeral and offers to take her to the estate she has inherited.

Kant drives Margot to the Gallows Hill property, which includes a modern public storefront for the family winery and a large, ancient, and imposing house on top of a hill. Margot feels no connection to the home. Inside, Kant reveals that the winery is a significant business with twelve full-time employees, which overwhelms Margot. He recounts finding her parents dead in their bed. As Margot explores the kitchen, she discovers that her parents had systematically torn her out of every family photograph on the refrigerator, deepening her pain of rejection. Kant softens the blow by telling her that her mother, Maria, would stay home from work and cry every year on Margot's birthday.

That evening, Margot explores the house. In the living room, she uncovers a monstrous effigy made of bones, wire, and wood, topped with a deer skull. In her parents' master bedroom, she finds a dark, damp stain on the ceiling directly above their bed. While lying on the mattress, she sees her reflection in an old mirror as a grotesque, decaying corpse, causing her to flee and seal the room. She then discovers her old childhood bedroom, which has a window secured with a heavy padlock. Later that night, she is violently awakened by service bells ringing frantically throughout the house. Searching for an intruder in the dark, she becomes lost. A lightbulb explodes, and she believes she sees a pair of eyes at the bottom of a staircase. Her paralysis is broken when all the bells begin ringing at once, and she runs downstairs. As dawn breaks, she finds six nooses hanging from the beams of her front porch.

The next morning, Kant explains that the hill was a site for public hangings for over a century. The oak tree used for the executions was later carved into the winery's most valuable barrels by Margot's ancestor, Ezra Hull. Margot is descended from Ezra's younger brother, Ephraim. Kant dismisses the nooses as a recurring prank related to this history. Margot tours the winery and meets the staff, including store managers Nora and Ray Palmer and accountant Andrew. She struggles with claustrophobia in the underground cellars, where she is shown the six priceless barrels made from the wood of the hanging tree. Due to a lifelong aversion to wine, she refuses a sample. Later, Margot joins a woman named Witchety for a ritual blessing of the land. Witchety explains the effigy is a "Watcher" she created to ward off evil and warns that the land feels "bad" and is "growing worse." Margot then discovers the service bells are an alarm system connected to the perimeter fence.

A trip to a hostile nearby town for groceries gives Margot a severe headache that only eases upon her return to the estate. That night, the television turns on by itself, playing a disturbing puppet show from a tape labeled "Margot's Tape." Made by her parents, it warns of a dangerous "other family" with mouths marked with Xs that emerges at night. The next day, Margot falls through a hidden trapdoor into a network of old tunnels beneath the hill. Terrified by echoing footsteps, she flees and eventually finds another exit. In a shed behind the house, she has a vision of a wailing woman crying the name "Ezra." Seeking answers, she visits Nora and Ray at the winery store. They reveal the full history: Margot's ancestor, Ephraim, is believed to have murdered the original owner, his brother Ezra, along with Ezra's entire family, to steal the estate. That night, Margot enters the attic to investigate the ceiling stain. She sees a pair of glowing eyes and finds an old, leather-bound journal. While leaving, she is touched by a decaying hand and falls from the ladder, locking the attic hatch behind her.

The next day, Margot reads the journal, written by Esther, Ezra's youngest daughter. It confirms Ephraim and his sons murdered the family on November 26, 1772. Margot realizes the current date is the 250th anniversary of the murders, and Nora confirms that major tragedies in the Hull family line have often occurred on fifty-year anniversaries. That night, a corpse breaks into Margot's barricaded bedroom. She escapes onto the porch roof but falls, breaking her arm. Dozens of other corpses with sewn-shut lips emerge from the mist and surround her. Kant and Andrew arrive and rescue her, taking her to the employee quarters where a vet, Dr. Maynard, treats her injuries. Kant, Nora, Ray, and Andrew explain the Gallows Hill curse: anyone who stays on the land too long becomes bound to it, unable to leave without suffering sickness and eventually death. As a Hull, Margot is permanently tied to the land by blood. They reveal her parents sent her away as a child to save her life after she was attacked by the dead, which is the source of her scars. They also inform her that her parents' bodies have been stolen from their graves.

On the anniversary night, Witchety lends Margot her dog, Marsh, as a talisman. The staff provides rules for survival: extinguish lights when the bells ring, stay quiet, and keep moving. Margot creates her own talisman from personally significant items. The bells ring, and the dead enter the house. Margot evades them but sees Marsh has escaped outside. She leaves the house to save him and finds the reanimated corpses of her childhood dog, Clementine, and her parents, who protect her from the other aggressive dead. Back in the house, the Watcher effigy, now with a corpse integrated into its wire frame, attacks. Marsh defends Margot, and they escape. Outside, they are surrounded. Kant, Andrew, Nora, and Ray come to help, but Kant is grabbed by hands reaching from the soft earth and dragged underground.

As dawn breaks, Margot and Andrew frantically dig him free, saving his life but not his eye. Margot realizes the curse stems from the injustice done to Ezra's family and that their bodies are hidden in the winery. Guided by the spirits of convicts who were hanged on the hill, she enters the tunnels and is led to the chamber with the six hanging-tree barrels. The spirit of Esther Hull drops the murder weapon, Ephraim's axe, through a crack in the ceiling. Margot uses the axe to smash open the barrels, revealing the six preserved corpses of Ezra's family inside. The spirits of the murdered Hulls appear, find peace, and vanish. The curse is broken, freeing everyone from the land. Margot calls the police to report the bodies, knowing it will destroy the winery's reputation. She decides to stay at Gallows Hill, dedicating herself to winding down the business and using any remaining funds to find and properly bury the remains of the hanged convicts, bringing peace to all the spirits on the hill. Kant, now free to leave, chooses to stay and help her.