On Christmas Eve, Frank Harrington, [Ray Wise], drives his family through a remote, off-map shortcut that he hopes will shake up their routine. In the car with him are his wife Laura Harrington, [Lin Shaye], their son Richard Harrington, [Mick Cain], their daughter Marion Harrington, [Alexandra Holden], and Marion’s boyfriend Brad Miller, [William Rosenfeld]. The trip begins with a tense mix of impatience and restrained worry as Frank pushes onward, looking for a change of scenery to lift the family’s mood.
After a near collision with another car, a mysterious white-clad woman appears at Frank’s window, cradling a baby. Marion, [Alexandra Holden], suggests they drive the stranger to a nearby cabin for safety, but the vehicle is full, so she volunteers to follow on foot and keep an eye on what’s ahead. When they reach the cabin, Frank and Laura step inside to investigate while Richard slips into the woods, leaving Brad, [William Rosenfeld], alone with the woman. Brad’s questions cut through the unease: how can the baby breathe when its face is covered by blankets? She answers with a chilling truth—it's dead—then reveals the corpse to him, a moment that shatters his courage and echoes through the night.
Brad’s screams bring Richard racing back toward the car, but the woman and Brad vanish from sight. Marion, making her way to the cabin, sees a hearse rolling by and hears Brad’s desperate cries from the back of it. She urges the others to pursue, driven by a mix of fear and determination to uncover what’s happening. Soon they discover Brad’s body—horrifically mutilated—along the road, and Laura dials the police, though a troubling detail surfaces: at the end of the call, a frightened voice begs for help, a moment Laura keeps hidden from her family as the tension tightens around them.
As they press on, Frank and Laura’s argument flares up about the family’s place in their lives, exposing Frank’s lingering resentment toward Laura’s relatives. The trio stops again to examine a baby carriage abandoned on the road, and in a terrifying instant Richard is abducted by the same hearse that carried Brad’s screams. The survivors sprint through the woods in a frantic bid to rescue him, and Frank sees the woman in white once more, her presence turning the night surreal and accusing.
The search ends in a grim reveal: Richard’s body lies where the road runs out, and Laura’s grip on reality begins to deteriorate as fear erodes her steadiness. The mood shifts further when the group encounters more signs they are not navigating a normal road—an ominous checkpoint labeled “Marcott,” hinting at a military road that exists beyond maps. In a fit of rage and fear, Laura fires a shotgun she had intended as a gift for a loved one, striking Frank in the leg and shattering the family’s fragile cohesion.
Haunted by visions, Laura then abandons the car to confront a ghostly figure from her past—an image of a friend who died years before—while the hearse returns, its ominous presence pressing in on them. Frank manages to fend off the threat with the gun, but he makes a devastating decision and shoots Laura, ending her life. He and Marion relocate Laura to a ranger station, where Frank scribbles a note for Marion to read later, a desperate attempt to preserve some thread of connection amid the nightmare.
The encounter with the woman in white intensifies as Frank confronts danger in the woods, and tragedy escalates into madness. He beats Marion unconscious in a delirious pursuit, then again spies the pale figure in white and tracks her into the trees, where an unseen force claims him. Marion regains consciousness and, with the car out of gas, presses on for help on foot. The road delivers a brutal sight: body bags containing her dead family members lie in the middle of the road, and the woman in white appears again, explaining that the hearse isn’t there for Marion before she slides into the same hearse and drives away.
Marion awakens in a hospital, heavily bandaged, where Dr. [Karen S. Gregan] tells her she survived the crash and that both she and the baby are fine, though she remains in a coma for some time. As the doctor leaves, a mysterious man, someone who claims to have found the family after the crash, confirms Marion’s survival and explains that another young woman and her baby in the other car did not make it. When the doctor attempts to depart, Marion’s car refuses to start, and the same hearse—driven by the same figure who appeared in her visions—offers her a ride.
In the aftermath, two workers, [Jimmie F. Skaggs] as Worker #1 and [Clement Blake] as Worker #2, sweep up debris and discover Frank’s note, discovering a final, haunting connection between the night’s events and the fragile thread that may still bind Marion to her family.
The story closes with a bleak, dreamlike ambiguity: Marion begins to awaken, the hospital lights flicker, and the sense that some force beyond explanation continues to shadow the family’s fate lingers. The woman in white remains a sentinel in the narrative, a symbol of the nightmarish path the Harringtons were forced to walk, and the hearse, ever present, hints that the danger—and the mystery—may not be over.
