LOGLINE:
Johnny (Anthony Michael Hall) and Walt (Chris Bruno) investigate the sudden violent behavior of the animals around Cleaves Mills.

SYNOPSIS:
Walt (Chris Bruno) discovers a mysterious car crash near Worden Lake. At the same time, Johnny (Anthony Michael Hall) stops by Faith Heritage looking for Reverend Purdy (David Ogden Stiers), who is giving a lecture on the bible. Johnny confronts Purdy after class to question him about a property tax bill he's received for a piece of land called Bellevue Estates, which he knows nothing about. Purdy, who is still the trustee of the Smith family estate, assures Johnny there must be some mistake, but Johnny is clearly skeptical. Their conversation is cut short when Walt phones Johnny to ask that he come to the scene of the crash to help with the investigation.

At the site, Johnny finds a wrecked car wrapped around a tree with the deceased victim still clutching the steering wheel. Her clothes are shredded, and tiny red slashes crisscross her face and neck. When Johnny touches her, he's thrown into a vision of bats violently attacking him, and he realizes the bats were the cause of the accident.

Later, at J.J.'s (Spencer Achtymichuk) soccer game, Johnny confides in Bruce (John L. Adams) that he suspects Purdy is somehow behind the mysterious tax bill. Then, as he high-fives J.J., Johnny is hit with vision of an angry white stallion stained with blood. Next he sees four horses, all bloodied and foaming at the mouth as they stampede the field, scattering unsuspecting players. Shaken by his vision, Johnny calls out to stop the game only moments before four crazed horses storm the field, pursuing the terrified kids. Johnny protects J.J., covering him with his body as one of the horses narrowly misses trampling them both to death. Walt arrives on the scene with two animal control officers, who load the now calm horses into trailers. He tells Johnny that the animals ran all the way from Worden Farm through town to get to the field. When Johnny touches one of the horses, he is hit with a vision from the horse's point-of-view and is overwhelmed by a strange groaning sound.

Walt, Johnny, and the animal control officers go to the farm to investigate, but no one is in sight. However, they find an abandoned car with the driver's door open next to a shattered fence. Touching the door, Johnny is seized by a vision of farm animals filled with terror and a man running for the open car door with a shotgun in his hand. The man looks in all directions, not sure where the danger is coming from. Snapping back to reality, Johnny spots a trail of blood leading into the house where he and Walt find the man's body. Reaching out to touch it, Johnny is hit with a vision of a woman and little girl frozen in fear as the man protectively steps between them and their angry dog. Back in the present, Johnny frantically searches the rest of the house with Walt. They find the man's wife and daughter in the cellar, bloodied and terrified, but alive. Stunned by the baffling situation, one of the animal control officers recommends consulting with Ted Keane (Ron Selmour), an animal behaviorist who tracks the local bear population. but Walt reveals that Keane was arrested the night before after running down the middle of the highway, acting crazy.

Meanwhile, Purdy privately curses Johnny as he hunches over his desk at home, drinking heavily while poring over Bellevue Estates title papers, deeds, environmental reports, and blueprints. His dog's insistent barking and a powerful vibration suddenly get his attention. Walking outside, Purdy spots a growling cougar with blood dripping from its mouth and paws along with the remains of a kill. Terrified, Purdy races back inside, and as he struggles to catch his breath, his pet Rottweiler begins to growl at him.

At a psychiatric ward, Johnny and Walt meet with Keane's doctor, who informs them that her patient is delusional and incoherent. The cause of his psychotic episode is a mystery, since Keane had no history of mental illness and no trace of drugs in his system. Though calmer now, Keane is still carrying on about dire predictions of something dangerous and unnatural coming out of the darkness. When Johnny and Walt enter his room, he starts rambling on about the disorder he witnessed in the woods, claiming that the disrupted food chain and migratory patterns have caused the animals to begin attacking people. Johnny is hit with a vision of Keane frantically clawing at his locked hospital door as a terrible noise of destruction grows louder, drowning out his cries for help.

Bruce and Johnny head to the woods and find Keane's trailer nearly demolished. Rummaging through his belongings, they find his field notebook filled with carefully written notes that eventually devolve into unintelligible line drawings beginning two days earlier. The last page is marked with a darkly drawn circle with hundreds of arrows pointing away from it. According to the data, the bears have shifted their territorial behavior abruptly, abandoning their usual habitats. Suddenly, an enraged bear slams into the trailer, but Johnny manages to distract the creature long enough to allow them to escape.

Later, Johnny and Bruce arrive at the sheriff's station as people are bombarding Walt with reports of attacks by their pets. Confounded by the strange behavior, it seems to Johnny that thousands of years of breeding and training have been stripped away to reveal the animals' basic instincts. Touching one of the many cages, Johnny is thrust into a vision from a dog's point of view. He sees the dog attacking its owner and hears the overwhelming noise he heard before, drowning out the owner's screams.

An emergency meeting is held at the community center. Although Walt assures the crowd that they are thoroughly investigating the situation, two hunters want to take it upon themselves to go into the woods to kill a wild bear they believe is scaring all of the other animals. As Purdy attempts to lead a prayer, the crowd disperses. Purdy then starts talking to Johnny about the two of them being the symbolic prophets from the bible who have set the stage for a disaster. Their contact sends Johnny into a vision of Purdy kneeling at Faith Heritage Chapel, fervently praying as a huge rumbling noise grows louder and louder. Purdy continues to pray while the chapel's walls vibrate around him. Back in the present, Johnny keeps his vision to himself and leaves.

The next day, Johnny asks Keane about the bizarre markings in his notebook. Keane explains the line drawings indicate how the animals were abandoning their habitats. He traces the pattern back to one specific area deep in the woods and heads out with Johnny, Walt, and Bruce towards the spot. After hiking for two hours, Keane and Johnny start to feel edgy, as if their animal instincts are being awakened within them. As they near their destination, Johnny hears the terrible sound from his visions.

Suddenly, repeated gunshots snap Johnny back to reality. Running silently towards the commotion, the men stumble upon the two hunters who were at the emergency meeting. One has accidentally wounded the other after being spooked by an incessant noise. Following another vision, Johnny deduces that if the ominous sound could scare the hunters enough to attack each other, maybe it's doing the same thing to the animals.

Keane leads the group to a dry riverbed that was cut off by a new dam. In a vision, Johnny is standing knee deep in a small pool at the base of the dam, looking up at the wall of cement in front of him. When he hears the groaning sound from his earlier visions, it becomes clear that the sound is that of concrete and steel being stressed beyond the breaking point. The noise is suddenly punctuated by a thunderous crack as the dam suffers a catastrophic failure. The concrete wall explodes, and millions of gallons of water consume Johnny in his vision. He snaps back to the present in a near panic and the group heads towards the control room, where they order the engineers to stop filling the dam. When Johnny touches an uncooperative engineer, he is hit with a vision of the dam crashing down on the worker before he can make it out alive. As the vision subsides, the engineer claims the governor would have to declare an emergency in order to release the water needed to stop the vibrations. Johnny heads off to see Reverend Purdy to enlist his help.

On the way, Johnny and Bruce notice a Bellevue Estates billboard standing above a swampy bog. Keane notes that the swamp will turn into lakefront property once the reservoir is full, and Johnny realizes that Purdy has been investing in Bellevue Estates using money from Johnny's trust. When they arrive, Johnny spots Purdy reading his bible with a bloodied hand and forearm. Purdy sets a gun on the desk in front of him and confesses to killing his beloved dog in self-defense. Johnny desperately pleads for his help to get water released from the dam, explaining the connection between the dam, the terrible vibrations, and the violent behavior of the animals. Touching Purdy's gun, Johnny is hit with a vision of a meeting between Purdy and a number of architects, engineers, and businessmen in which Purdy is backing the filling of the reservoir and encouraging the others to fight all the environmental lawsuits against them.

Back in the present, Johnny consoles a devastated Purdy and persuades him to try to make amends for his actions by using his influence with the governor to stop filling the dam. Purdy follows through, and life in Cleaves Mills returns to normal.