The Devil at Bay

CLAUDINE, a young novitiate, along with SISTER KIMBERLY, the practical one, and SISTER LAURIE, a whiner, travel to a remote Catholic school off Vancouver Island to investigate the mysterious disappearance of the nuns stationed there. Upon arrival, they discover the blind SISTER MARIE is the only one left, and her two companions have disappeared. They question why the two nuns would leave a blind person to fend for themselves. Sister Marie states she’s been blind since childhood and able to get around without help from others. “The isolation. Sometimes it wears on the younger ones.” The next morning, while searching for preserves in the cellar, Claudine stumbles onto a creature locked away in the basement. Sister Marie claims it to be the devil himself. Sister Kimberly goes to look for herself, but, in an altercation with Sister Marie, falls down the stairs and is killed. Sister Marie tells the two remaining nuns they’re not allowed in the cellar and locks them out. With the phones not working, Claudine searches the garage to find the car also inoperable. She decides she’ll leave in the morning to search for help, although the trek will take most of a day. Once back inside the school, Sister Marie reveals the other two nuns did not leave, but are instead dead, and recounts the story of how the beast arrived. He showed up one night in the form of a man, DANIEL, saying he was lost. He was charming at first, but soon became rude, vulgar, and predatory. Sister Marie, and the other two nuns, Sister Leona and Sister Margaret, decide he’ll leave the next day. But in the morning, Sister Marie finds Sister Margaret killed in a ritualistic way, with her throat slit and symbols carved on her body. She then says Sister Leona hanged herself after seeing Daniel transform in the beast. Sister Marie shows Claudine the bodies in a third-floor bedroom. Except there is only one body, that of Sister Margaret’s. Since Sister Marie is blind, Claudine doesn’t let on that the other body is missing. That night, Claudine has nightmares of the abuse she suffered at the hands of her stepdad. When she wakes the next morning, she tells Sister Laurie she isn’t going for help, but instead wants Sister Laurie to distract Sister Marie while Claudine sneaks to the cellar to investigate the beast. After some convincing, Sister Laurie and Sister Marie go to the river to find berries. Claudine enters the cellar through the outside doors, makes her way to the cage, and finds Daniel, bound and gagged. She realizes he’s just a man who claims he’s been wrongfully accused and imprisoned. He begs her for help, but she doesn’t have a key to the cage or to the shackle on his leg. He says he came there with two friends, Ricky and Dom, but doesn’t know what happened to them. He tells Claudine he had a phone in his backpack; she can use it to call for help. Claudine leaves Daniel with some food, and tells him to be quiet, as Sister Marie is off kilter. She proceeds to search the house for the phone and is interrupted when Sister Laurie and Sister Marie return. Later that night, Claudine sneaks down to the cellar again with more food. Daniel tells his side of the story: He, Ricky, and Dom were smoking weed after dinner when Sister Leona caught them. Instead of reprimanding them, she joined in the fun, much to Sister Marie’s disapproval. After dinner, Sister Marie and Sister Margaret then drug the three men. Daniel says he woke in the cellar and hasn’t seen his friends since. The nuns were feeding him for about a while, then stopped. The next day, Claudine searches the garage and discovers Daniel’s backpack in the trunk of the car. She finds the phone and, after failing to reach police, calls the cab driver who drove them there. As a ploy, Claudine and Sister Laurie tell Sister Marie they need to bring Sister Kimberly’s body up from the basement. After some convincing, Sister Marie allows it. When Sister Marie starts down the steps, she becomes overwhelmed with demonic images in her head. She rips the bandages from her eyes to reveal they’ve been gouged out, by her, to stop the false visions. “To me, Hell is a place that has no hope.” That night, Sister Laurie and Claudine decide to drug Sister Marie so they can search for the keys. Claudine then goes to the basement to help Daniel, with whom she is falling in love. Sister Laurie, while searching, sees a young boy run upstairs. She follows him thinking it’s her long dead son who died years before. When Claudine returns upstairs, she finds Sister Laurie hanging from the banister. Furious, Claudine hunts down Sister Marie, who she now believes is behind everything, only to find Sister Marie in the sanctuary picking at the flesh of Sister Leona’s body. Sister Marie tells Claudine the demon has possessed her and Claudine will become possessed because she lets men prey on her weakness. After an altercation, Claudine is able to lock Sister Marie in a classroom, find the keys, and get Daniel out. As Claudine and Daniel escape, they are attacked by Sister Kimberly. They’re able to make their way upstairs to find the cab driver had arrived and was killed. As they flee the school, Daniel is attacked by Sister Marie. Although she is possessed, she still asserts Daniel to be evil. When Claudine attempts to pull her off, Sister Marie warns her the devil will use her for his bidding. Daniel is able fend off Sister Marie and sets her on fire. One last glimmer of Sister Marie’s true self comes out, as she begs Claudine to help her, before she and the entire school are engulfed in flames. The story then jumps ahead 11 years, showing Claudine and Daniel go on a family outing with their two children. However, in an unnerving final twist, Claudine finds their daughter Olivia murdered as part of a satanic ritual and their son Caleb with his eyes gouged out, as Daniel simple grins at her, implying he was the devil all along.