When brother and sister return to their family home in the northern woods for their mother's funeral, they discover that their parents plan to steal their bodies.

SYNOPSIS:

Christmas Island Synopsis

Repressed tech guy Kenneth McAllister returns to his family home on Christmas Island, deep in the wintry Minnesota woods, where his mother Doris has died.

On arrival, he loses his phone in the snow.

His father Bill, like the house, is in bad shape.

Next morning, a snowstorm has totally cut the house off from the outside world.

Kenneth learns his free-spirit sister Sissy has also stayed the night.

Kenneth has a creepy conversation with his dead mother, who blames him for abandoning her.

When Doris starts to stink, Kenneth & Sissy put her in the cold shed, where they look through all the treasures Doris confiscated when they were kids. They discover she was a frustrated artist, whose former lover Dave had red hair just like Kenneth.

A tape of the song Christmas Island by The Andrews Sisters triggers painful memories in Sissy.

Kenneth finds some snowshoes and goes in search of his phone. He meets an ethereal Indigenous woman naked in the snow. She reminds Kenneth of their first meeting at age 16: Bill brought him to a sex party to lose his virginity; she was a young girl, lured into prostitution by Bill’s girlfriend. Kenneth discovers he was unknowingly responsible for her death.

The Woman punishes him by sending him back to a fate potentially worse than death.

Sissy finds out Doris was into occult spells from Sissy’s old magic books. She accidentally reads a spell that brings Doris back to life.

Next morning, the phone lines are back up. Undertaker Sam Cribben Jr calls to say he’s coming for Doris. Bill sends Kenneth to get her from the shed.

Sissy goes out to chop wood and finds Bill dead and frozen, hanging from a tree down back. She runs to Kenneth. They enter the shed to find Doris is gone.

Bill locks Kenneth & Sissy in the shed.

From Doris’s notes, Kenneth & Sissy discover that their parents are indeed both dead, but have found how to keep their ghosts alive until they can steal Sissy & Kenneth’s bodies.

When Sam Jr & wife Shirley arrive, Bill & Doris bewitch them, leaving them entranced in the hearse.

Doris & Bill go out to the shed to steal their children’s bodies. When the dust clears:

• Doris ends up in Kenneth’s body
• Bill in Sissy’s body
• Kenneth in Bill’s corpse hanging on the tree
• Sissy in Doris’s corpse in the house.

Bill in Sissy wants to get it on with Doris in Kenneth. She responds positively.

Kenneth in Bill discovers he can move. He gets free and shambles, zombie-like, to the house with an axe, but is overpowered by his parents. Doris and Bill go into the bedroom to “talk privately”.

Sissy in Doris dictates a spell to Kenneth, who forces Bill’s dead mouth to say it out loud. The spell lets them kick their parents out of their bodies and repossess themselves.

Bill & Doris end up in Sam Jr and Shirley’s bodies, and vow revenge.

Kenneth and Sissy go through family documents in the shed. They learn that Kenneth is Doris’s by red-haired Dave, and Sissy is Bill’s from some other woman; in other words, they are not related at all! The lights go out.

Bill and Doris trap Kenneth & Sissy in the shed and set it on fire.

Sissy & Kenneth find a spell that lets them enter Sam & Shirley’s heads and battle their parents.

Bill and Doris are finally sent back to their own corpses, and everyone else regains their own bodies.

Kenneth and Sissy try to come to terms with their new relationship. Kenneth believes they are meant to be together, notwithstanding his current girlfriend; Sissy disagrees, pointing out their fundamental incompatibility. They agree to take time and figure it out.

In the hearse back to town, Bill and Doris beg Kenneth and Sissy not to bury them and condemn them to an eternity underground. They agree to cremate them and let them go.

Kenneth and Sissy gaze out opposite window, hand in hand, as the hearse rolls into the night.

CHRISTMAS ISLAND