The Return

From age 11, Joanna Mills is haunted by episodes of self-mutilation and menacing visions. Her father later notes that she has been a 'different girl' since that time, marking a lasting break from her earlier self. These early experiences foreshadow the nightmarish visions that will drive her life.

Joanna builds a career as a traveling representative for a trucking company and keeps most people at arm's length. When an important client looms, she agrees to a trip to Texas to secure the deal. The journey sets the stage for the first fateful encounters with her visions.

On the road, Joanna's visions grow more vivid, revealing fragments of events not from her life. A strange face appears in the mirror, and Patsy Cline's 'Sweet Dreams' blares from the truck radio regardless of station. The unsettling episodes pull her toward a dangerous destination in Texas.

She stops at the scene of a highway accident, driven by the visions. The following day, the accident seems to have not happened, leaving her shaken and unsure of reality. The event deepens the mystery surrounding her visions.

In a bar, Joanna cuts herself in the restroom, an act of self-destruction she barely survives. A friend arrives just in time to pull her back from the brink. The incident reinforces the sense that danger and past trauma haunt her movements.

Joanna visits her father, who remarks that since age 11 she has been 'a different girl,' implying a deep, unresolved history. The conversation anchors the mystery in family and childhood. It reinforces the idea that her present self carries a heavy inheritance from the past.

The visions grow more specific, centering on a man she does not recognize and a bar she has never seen. A photo of the bar appears in one of her catalogs, creating a tangible link to the place she must visit. The clues begin to map a pattern that ties Annie's life to hers.

Drawn by the image, Joanna travels to the Texas town where the bar is located, a place she has not been since childhood. There she meets Terry Stahl, whose wife Annie was brutally assaulted fifteen years earlier and who was suspected but not convicted. The meeting deepens the connection between past and present.

Her visions continue to weave Annie's life with Joanna's, guiding her toward the killer and the weapon. She encounters the real killer and is led by her visions to recover the knife he used from its hiding place. The recovered weapon becomes central to the plan to uncover the truth.

Joanna becomes the target of stalking as the killer realizes she is close to the truth. The threat tightens as she tries to stay ahead of him through the town. The danger escalates toward a confrontation.

A fatal confrontation unfolds as the events of the original crime replay. Joanna stabs her assailant with the recovered knife, using the original weapon to avenge the crime committed fifteen years earlier. The act brings justice and closure to the long-repressed memories.

In the ending, Annie dies when Terry's car crashes into Joanna's father's car, in which the eleven-year-old Joanna was a passenger. Shortly after, Joanna awakens, implying Annie's soul has reincarnated in her body and affirming the 'different girl' motif. The final shot shows a silent, reflective Joanna pondering her true identity.