A father kidnaps his children and endangers their lives by moving to an Okefenokee cottage and releasing an evil Hoodoo spirit from her swamp island grave.

SYNOPSIS:

I’d like to share a Southern gothic horror called "Haint Blue."“Haint Blue” includes the volatile family themes of “The Shining” mixed with the supernatural Hoodoo horror of the , “Skeleton Key.” The story is about a womanizing construction worker, Dale (30’s) who loses a custody battle and steals his children, Eric (14) and Karyn (7) and moves them to a remote swamp cottage in Georgia. Soon the family discovers strange happenings across the swamp on an island where a bottle tree is built. Dale sees a nude phantom and the children see floating ghost orchids enticing them to the island. In town, the children befriend a local Hoodoo curio shop owner, Koko and her son, Sonny who warns them to never cross over to it. The island imprisons the evil spirit of Kufwa (meaning “to die”), a Hoodoo priestess who as a slave killed her master’s children and hid in a trapper’s swamp shanty. The master tracked her down and strangled her with her own roots and dumped her body in the bog underneath the shanty. Being scared of her sorcery, the master had his slaves dig a channel around the shanty. Under Hoodoo superstition, evil spirits are unable to travel over water.

Dale is beguiled by the enchantress and chops down a tree to bridge the island. He is led by floating ghost orchids to the shanty where he raises Kufwa from the bog and unleashes the revenging spirit. She murders him with penetrating roots from her hands and mouth. Now she has the ability to possess Dale and harm his own children.

The only place that is safe for the children is under the Haint blue porch of the cottage. (Haint blue is a traditional paint used on the exterior of Southern homes due to the Hoodoo superstition that the color reflects water which repels evil spirits from invading the home.) Koko and Sonny join Dale’s children and explains the demon must be exorcised back to the depths to which she came. However, the cunning Kufwa wounds Koko and disables her from performing the ritual. Kufwa decides to burn off the Haint blue as she sets the house ablaze, but Eric and Sonny have already swam to the shanty. Understand Sonny, the seven year old, is more powerful than his mother and starts the ritual. Kufwa feeling her power diminishing rushes toward the shanty and attacks the children. However, Eric protects Sonny by chopping at her lacerating roots and dragging Kufwa down into the bog by her attached roots. Sonny completes the exorcism, but it is too late to save Eric. In the end, the children break the bridge and Kufwa’s evil spirit is imprisoned once again.

I believe the volatile parent and child relationship mixed with the supernatural gothic horror is the recipe in conjuring a new horror tradition and franchise based on the unique harrowing Kufwa.

HAINT BLUE