Madison County 2011

College students James Colley Bailey and Will Matt Mercer pick up Brooke Joanna Motomura and her friend Jenna Natalie Scheetz, along with Brooke’s protective older brother Kyle Ace Marrero. They head toward Madison County, Arkansas to meet David Randall Dayton Knoll, the author of a true-crime book about the killer Damien Ewell Nick Principe. David has agreed to be interviewed for a class assignment.

On the road, a trucker suggests a shortcut, but the group declines and stays on their planned route.

At a diner in Madison County, locals stare as a kindly old woman named Erma Adrienne Harrell hints that Damien Ewell doesn’t exist and that David Randall moved away years ago, though she does reveal David’s old address. When they leave, Will is briefly threatened by a local for accidentally photographing his truck, and Kyle stands up to him, forcing the threat to back off.

They reach David’s house to find it empty. Kyle returns to town in James’ SUV to talk to locals while the rest wait at the house. Kyle searches a graveyard and is lured into the woods by two nude women; while he and the women skinny-dip by a lake, Damien Ewell silently approaches, stabs Kyle, and dumps his body into the water.

James finds a photograph confirming that Erma is Damien’s mother and heads back toward town. On the way, the hostile local who threatened Will nearly runs him over, but the trucker from earlier offers James a ride and reveals he is David Randall. David drives James to Damien’s house and knocks him out with a shovel.

James wakes up in a barn tied up alongside David and David’s daughter Kristen Megan Elizabeth Bell, the girl from the beginning. David explains he was forced to lure James and his friends to Madison County in an attempt to rescue Kristen. Damien Ewell Nick Principe enters the barn, stabbing David in the stomach, but James manages to free himself and wound Damien. James, Kristen, and the wounded David escape the barn and try to leave in a truck, but Damien jumps into the bed and finishes off David. James slams on the brakes and knocks Damien from the truck’s bed; after a brief fight, James and Kristen manage to escape.

Brooke returns to town and reaches the diner, where she tells Erma that her friends were killed. Erma Adrienne Harrell tells her to wait outside by her car, and as Brooke stands there, Erma sneaks up and stabs her to death as locals watch from their windows.