Round the Decay

In the late 1600s, Whelan Newport leads colonial settlers into Newport's Valley and performs a brutal ritual. He sacrifices his wife to the ancient spirit known as the Wrexsoul, seeking dominion over the land. The spirit lashes out, exterminating the native inhabitants and cursing the valley with guilt and secrecy.

Two years after her fiancé Ben vanishes during a hiking trip, Kenzie Rhodes returns to the remote town. She checks into the Barn Owl Inn and confronts a community that has learned to deny or forget what happened. The town feels trapped in time, haunted by an old wound that won't heal.

Bart Blakewell arrives to revive the decaying Barn Owl Inn, bringing hope to the dwindling tourist economy. His optimism clashes with the wary locals who cling to old stories and silence. Kenzie's return stirs tension and unsettles the town's fragile balance.

Roz Jackson, a longtime acquaintance who now tends bar, urges Kenzie to stay away from the woods. She hints that Ben's disappearance wasn't natural and that something darker sleeps in the forest. The warning plants seeds of doubt about the town's carefully maintained history.

Aida Kazarian, her boyfriend Trevor, and two college friends arrive at the inn and decide to explore Widow's Gap cave system. They discuss local legends and the cave's long closure. The expedition foreshadows the terror that will unfold.

Deep inside the cave, the group discovers crude colonial symbols and a mummified corpse hanging upside down with its mouth sewn shut. The Wrexsoul awakens, signaling that the town's dark history has returned. Trevor is found torn apart in his tent, triggering the first wave of the hunt.

Sheriff Denton insists Trevor's death was a bear attack, but Munroe arrives with unsettling knowledge about the region's lore. He explains that Ben's disappearance fits a decades-old pattern tied to the town's elite descended from Whelan Newport. The group learns that a grim covenant upholds the Wrexsoul's presence.

Kenzie experiences vivid dreams in which the Wrexsoul mimics Ben's voice, blurring memory and reality. Bart uncovers blood-written names of the original victims under the inn's floorboards. The discoveries deepen the sense that guilt and sacrifice haunt every corner of the town.

Agnes Lawley shares that the valley is 'sick with the blood of betrayal' and that sacrifices occur in cycles. She explains a layered history of murder and ritual that fuel the Wrexsoul's return. Some townsfolk secretly aid the creature through an old covenant.

Kenzie joins forces with Aida, Bart, and Munroe to study the Newport family homestead ruins for clues. They conclude the Wrexsoul cannot be killed conventionally and must be trapped by a willing soul in a new tomb. They plan a ritual using Whelan's journal to lure the creature.

The group returns to Widow's Gap and enact the planned ritual, drawing the Wrexsoul into a final confrontation. Bart sacrifices himself to buy time as explosives seal the cave entrance. Munroe is gravely wounded, and Aida is briefly possessed by the Wrexsoul, speaking in Ben's voice.

Kenzie offers herself to the Wrexsoul, reversing the original covenant and using her own name in place of Whelan’s wife. The creature falters and disintegrates in a storm of shrieks as the cave collapses. Dawn breaks on a valley that feels both lighter and haunted by what remains.

The town bears the consequences: the sheriff is missing, Munroe is dead, Aida has left town, and the Inn is boarded up. The land feels quieter but scarred, the cycle of sacrifice hinted to continue beneath the surface. The survivors begin to rebuild with caution and reluctance.

Weeks after the climactic confrontation, a group of children exploring the ruins of an old barn hear faint whispers calling one of their names. The voice sounds eerily familiar, suggesting that the Wrexsoul's influence lingers. The film closes on the uneasy sense that fear and guilt still haunt the valley.