Synopsis/Details
Sam returns to Sleepy Head for his estranged father’s funeral. There he meets gravedigger and old childhood best friend Max. The two drink and reminisce. Sam talks of his failed relationship with his father, after his mother drowned during his childhood, and his subsequent regret at not returning in time to say goodbye during his father’s illness. Max confesses the last few years were hard for him too, that he was depressed after Sam left, despite a promise they would leave together and travel the world, and that he slid into heroin abuse, before a failed suicide attempt prompted him to kick his habit.
The next day Max takes Sam to the pier to meet his Irish weed dealer and psychic clairvoyant Mystic Mick, so that they can perform a séance and Sam can contact his father to say goodbye. The séance fails, but Max suggests they try it again at Sam’s father’s graveside, using the deceased’s suit to help them make contact.
Max, Mick and Sam (wearing his father’s suit) perform another séance in the cemetery by his father’s grave. Sam collapses and dreams of a reconciliation with his father on the beach where his mother drowned when he was a child, but the dream is invaded by malevolent dark figures with white eyes, as a storm builds overhead. Sam awakes to find a real storm brewing above the cemetery and a vibrating hum rising from some of the graves. The three men quickly leave the graveyard and go their separate ways.
Sam has an uneasy walk home, hearing whispers and half glimpsing shadows, before dreaming about the beach and the dark figures again. Sam wakes with a start and notices a dark figure waiting outside. Max lets Sam into his barricaded flat and tells him he’s seen the same figure too. Sam and Max go to the pier to ask Mick for help. Mick’s been drinking and is sceptical about their story, but he looks outside and sees thirty dark figures waiting at the start of the pier. They surmise the séance acted like a clairvoyance bomb, and raised more spirits in the cemetery than just Sam’s father.
The dark figures advance and the three men are forced to jump into the sea from the end of the pier to escape, Max pushing Sam in because of his morbid fear of drowning. Sam goes under and blacks out. He dreams of being washed up on the beach again. He sees dead bodies washed up on the sand with gold coins resting on their eyes, and Max moving among them, looting the coins.
Sam is resuscitated on the shore in Sleepy Head by Max, but the dark figures slowly rise from the sea and advance on them, forcing them to flee into town. They realize no one else can see the figures and suspect they might be blind, lost souls. Max confesses he once stole gold coins from the eyes of dead fishermen he buried to fund his drug habit. Mick tells them they have to return the stolen coins and hope it appeases the dead. Max reveals the remaining coins are buried in an unnamed plot in the cemetery.
Max takes them to the cemetery and they begin to dig for the stolen coins, but the dark figures appear and begin to close in. Realizing they’re running out of time, Sam distracts the figures. He weaves between the headstones, luring the dead away from Max and Mick, as they dig for the coins.
Sam is cornered by the dead and fights, but is forced back to the cliff edge. Max calls to the dead and steps forwards to meet them. He apologizes for his theft and offers them the sack of coins. The lead figure empties the contents of the sack, and then grabs both of Max’s hands, burning them. The figure screams at him and then bursts into white flames and rockets up into the night sky. The other figures ascend to the afterlife too, leaving ghostly vapour trails in their wake.
Max rushes over to Sam and pulls him up from the cliff edge, despite his burnt hands. The heavens above stir and the perpetual storm finally breaks in a downpour. Max asks Sam if they can please leave Sleepy Head now.
