Hall Baltimore is a down-on-his-luck writer who specializes in novels about witch hunts. At a small-town book signing, he is approached by Sheriff Bobby LaGrange, an eccentric fan with two requests: that Hall read his latest work and that he also accompany him to the morgue to view the body of a recent murder victim, as Bobby believes it would make for a great story. Hall reluctantly agrees, and at the morgue he learns that the person was murdered by a serial killer. Despite offers from Bobby, Hall opts not to look at the victim’s face. At a nearby coffee shop he hears about a local hotel that once sheltered Edgar Allan Poe, and these strange town features push Hall toward telling a story based on the town himself.
After falling asleep, Hall is drawn into a dreamlike version of the town where he meets V, a young girl nicknamed “Vampira” for her teeth and braces. V tells Hall she’s a fan of his work but couldn’t attend the signing because the town’s clock tower always displays seven different, conflicting times. Hall tries to persuade V to join him at the hotel for a soda, but she declines entry. Undeterred, Hall enters the hotel and finds a bizarre, candlelit place run by a strange couple who talk about daylight saving time and the town’s history of murder. V appears in the window, only to be shooed away by the female owner. V bites the hotel owner, prompting Hall to rush outside after V and encounter her threatening a priest by saying that she “knew what [he] did.” Hall continues to follow V and runs into Edgar Allan Poe, who offers guidance and steers him back toward town.
The next morning, inspired, Hall decides to collaborate with Bobby on a story that would center around vampires. Bobby shows him a miniature model of a machine designed to drive a stake into a vampire’s heart, and he wants to name the project “The Vampire Executions.” Despite Bobby’s input, Hall struggles with writer’s block and accepts several sleeping pills from Bobby in hopes of finding renewed inspiration in dreams. He again enters the dream-town, where Poe reappears. A sequence of visions hints that V was molested by the town’s priest, who took in orphans out of fear they would join Flamingo, the people across the lake who are believed to be vampires. In the waking world, Hall’s reality begins to unravel as strange events begin to mirror his dream, such as Bobby’s belief that teenagers gathering at the lake are “evil” and “asking for it.” This causes Hall to suspect Bobby, who suddenly knocks Hall unconscious.
In the dream world, Hall learns that the priest drugged and murdered all the children to keep them from joining Flamingo at the lake. V managed to survive briefly but was pursued by the priest and ultimately murdered. The priest hangs himself in shame. Hall realizes his writer’s block stems from guilt over his daughter’s death in a boating accident, a tragedy he says was caused by his own inebriation that morning. Working through his emotions, Hall writes a story in which V survives and is rescued by Flamingo. He wakes in his room to find Bobby has left. He travels to the sheriff’s office, only to discover that the deputy has been murdered and that Bobby has hanged himself, leaving a note that reads “Guilty.” Distraught, Hall goes to the morgue to view the murder victim’s face, only to find that it is V’s body, and she has been impaled with a stake. Hall removes the stake from her chest, and V awakens to attack him with a new set of elongated fangs.
The screen cuts to Hall’s publisher, Sam Malkin, who places down a new manuscript and tells Hall that he loves the story and foresees a whole new series that could make Hall more popular than ever. The post-film text reveals that the series was moderately popular, Bobby’s murder remains unsolved, and Flamingo was never seen or heard from again, leaving the fate of the town—and Hall’s own creation—in limbo as the story closes. The film lingers on the idea that everything that unfolded may have been contained within the manuscript itself, inviting viewers to wonder where reality ends and fiction begins.
