American psychologist John Holden arrives in London to participate in a symposium aiming to expose witchcraft and devil-worship as a fraud, with attention centered on a cult run by a Julian Karswell. Debarking his plane, Holden learns that the symposium leader, Henry Harrington, has suddenly died and he is now in charge. What only the audience knows is that Harrington was clearly killed by a demon, apparently summoned by Karswell to avenge his persecution. Despite both threatening and cajoling behavior by Karswell, Holden determines to proceed, though the only cult member willing to talk about his experiences is in a prison psychiatric ward, catatonic after allegedly killing yet another cult member. However, Harrington's niece, Joanna, believes, based on her uncle's notes, that Karswell may indeed have some satanic powers derived from an ancient tome in an obscure language which he has been able to translate, and attempts to warn the skeptic Holden. Karswell's mother also attempts to warn Holden off. However, the thing which begins to most get to Holden are the occasional, but mounting, sensory and mental disturbances he begins experiencing after an encounter with Karswell, and the discovery that, during this encounter, Karswell secretly slipped a slip of parchment with a curse in runic symbols on it into Holden's belongings, a parchment identical to one Harrington recorded having had passed to him in a similar manner shortly before his death... [N.B. Holden at no point stays at the Karswell estate].。位于北冰洋沿岸的哈默菲斯特是挪威最北的城市,这座小城每年都会经历极夜,太阳永远地藏在地平线以下不会升起,城市在漫长的黑夜与永恒的黎明之间徘徊。来自德国的天然气工程师尼尔斯把自己的妻子玛利亚和儿子接来此地,希望挽救即将破碎的家庭。但新的环境貌似对他们的关系于事无补。尼尔斯没日没夜的工作,还在外有个情人。玛利亚在临终医院做夜间看护,处在青春躁动期的儿子马库斯与新同学的关系也日拔弩张。但一晚一场突然起来的车祸将三颗冰冷的心渐渐融化,原本岌岌可危的夫妻关系在共同承担对这一事件的过程中开始发生变化,并在彼此的陪伴中完成了由恐慌-逃避-愧疚-踌躇-忏悔的整个心理历程,并最终在对向受害者父母说出真相完成了对自我心灵的救赎。。