After a group of campers is slaughtered by an unknown animal, Eric awakens naked at the edge of a forest pond, disoriented and shaken from another night lost to the wolf. Drawn by the sound of a wooden flute drifting through the trees, he follows the music to its source and discovers a young woman, Deidra, playing alone in a clearing. She spots him before he can sneak to her van for clothing—but instead of recoiling, she calmly offers him a spare set from inside.

Grateful and confused, Eric accepts a ride back to her cottage. Meanwhile, the local townsfolk, furious over the camper deaths, form a vigilante hunting party. The sheriff attempts to regain control, insisting the investigation remains a law enforcement matter, but their thirst for vengeance drives them deeper into the woods.

During the drive, Eric and Deidra encounter the sheriff himself, who warns them to avoid the armed searchers. Eric tenses, afraid his identity–or his guilt–might be discovered. But the sheriff has never heard of him. In this tiny town, staff limited, no one suspects him of anything. When questioned, Eric improvises a story about camping, getting lost, and tearing his clothes on thorns. They accept it without further interrogation.

Back at Deidra’s cottage, Eric watches in disbelief as a teenage girl, Tracy, receives what appears to be a love potion meant to sway a boy’s affection. Eric scoffs, dismissing Deidra as a harmless eccentric—until she speaks with uncanny certainty about his “condition,” one he has never uttered aloud. If werewolves exist, he realizes, perhaps witches do too.

A scream tears through the woods. Eric races toward it and finds Tracy’s boyfriend assaulting her. Eric intervenes, but the boy suddenly collapses, unconscious, then dead. Eric insists the boy took something—a drug. Tracy and Deidra recoil in horror, believing the potion is to blame.

But the autopsy tells a different story: the boy overdosed on PCP. The potion had nothing to do with it. Still, the boy’s father, Jake—leader of the hunting party—refuses to believe the truth. Convinced Deidra is a witch who murdered his son, he vows vengeance. The sheriff orders Deidra to stay home and off the roads for her safety. He can't protect her since most of his men are out looking for a killer bear.

Night approaches, and Eric feels the transformation clawing up from within. Deidra prepares a ritual, guiding him into a pentagram drawn across her cottage floor, claiming she can undo his curse. But before she can begin, Jake and his enraged followers arrive, shouting threats and demanding the witch reveal herself.

Eric breaks the circle to confront them, earning a blow that sends him sprawling. As the mob sets Deidra’s home ablaze, preparing to burn her alive, they are met with something far more terrifying than any witch: The snarling, towering beast Eric has become.