On a snow-covered road in the woods of upstate New York, Manhattanites George and Kim, and their eight-year-old son Miles, drive to the country house where they'll spend a much-needed weekend vacation. Suddenly, their car hits a deer, leading the shaken family to a terrifying encounter with the leader of a posse of local hunters that had been pursuing the animal. Miles witnesses the angry hunter's "mercy killing" of the wounded stag though his parents do their best to protect him. As they settle into the farmhouse, the quiet and isolation begin to erode their sense of well-being, with the psychotic hunter seemingly at the root of it all. His menacing presence starts to consume the family. The adults cling tentatively to rationality for the sake of their child while Miles invokes the ferocious spirit of the Wendigo, a Native American myth made manifest in the young boy's imagination.