A troubled young archeologist travels to a remote village to unearth a legendary crown, only to trigger a horrific scenario that forces him to face his darkest secret -- and the nefarious medieval entity hellbent on exploiting it. "The Nun" meets "Hereditary".

SYNOPSIS:

The story follows CLIVE, a young, gifted archaeologist operating out of the University of Chicago, whose life has recently fallen into disarray after a tragic dig-site accident resulted in the deaths of his fiancée. Having been suspended from his department under suspicion of professional negligence, Clive has backslid into drug addiction and serious financial trouble. However, his kindly former mentor IRVING offers Clive an opportunity to make some extra money by traveling to a remote village in rural England, where the town council intends on commissioning a dig to unearth the "Lost Crown of Anglia" -- an ancient relic rumored to harbor mythical properties. Despite his reluctance, Clive is in desperate straits, and agrees to take on the out-of-the-way assignment.

Upon arriving in the conservative seaside town of Aldeburgh, Clive checks into a decidedly eerie inn and has a few unpleasant run ins with the locals, including the nosy VICAR, who warns him not to pursue this task, as well as MRS. CODBURY, the haughty head of the council who hired him. Through Codbury, Clive learns that the lost crown was once the property of a fearsome medieval warlord named COUNT MAGNUS, who purportedly infused it with alchemical dark magic in order to ward off all invading forces, before secretly hiding the crown upon his death. As he embarks upon his search, Clive soon meets and befriends ELIZA, a whip-smart young woman from London who has been brought on by the council to work as a photographer. However, Clive's mental state remains wracked with anxiety, as he suffers recurring visions and nightmares relating to the horrific accident that occurred involving his fiancee.

Nevertheless, Clive persists in his search, pushing back against the creepy towns-people as they actively attempt to hinder his progress. Eventually, he manages to crack a cryptic code involving a withered map and uses it to track down the crown -- only to discover that the artifact has actually been split into three separate pieces, each hidden in a different unknown locale. Irritated, Clive tells Codbury he didn't sign up for multiple digs, but she lords the promise of a payday over him, convincing him to stay on. But, before long, Clive realizes that something's terribly wrong. He's being followed by a tall, thin phantom-like figure, dressed all in dark, appearing and disappearing in the periphery of his vision like a wisp. To make matters worse, strange occurrences are piling up involving inanimate objects seemingly coming to life with malicious intent -- such as a sheet wrapping itself around his neck like a noose, or a demonic red eye appearing through a hole in the pages of an old diary. It appears as though the discovery of the first piece of this crown has awoken an ancient evil.

Clive begins to question his sanity, but Eliza pushes him to be strong. She's convinced that the strange things he's been seeing are, in fact, the machinations of the shifty townspeople, attempting to bamboozle him with mind-games. Clive forges onward, discovering a second piece of the crown, and then a third. But with each piece he finds, the ghoulish supernatural side-effects ramp up further. The second piece seemingly grants this entity control of animals and insects -- including bats, rats, and spiders-- who viciously attack Clive en masse. The third piece allows the mysterious force to control other human beings, turning friends and foes alike into mindless, murderous drones. Rapidly losing his grip and unsure who to trust, Clive now must attempt to reverse the curse by returning the crown to the source of this evil: the imposing mausoleum of the fearsome Count Magnus. But, in entering this crypt, he has unwittingly fallen into Magnus' trap. As it turns out, the Count has been awakened by the disturbance of his prized crown, and now has set into motion an insidious scheme which ties into the dark, unspoken secrets of Clive's own past. Will Clive right his wrongs and dispel the evil gnawing at his soul? Or will he give in to the seductive power of Count Magnus, damning both himself and Eliza to the depths of Hell?