Logline

When a new tour guide starts her job at a closed penitentiary turned museum, the mischievous spirit who haunts the place turns deadly and takes out his frustrations on a team of phony paranormal investigators hired to rid the structure of a horrid evil.

Oak Hills was once a large prison that housed the worst of criminals, run by a hardened warden who strongly believed in the death penalty by hanging. When Mad Dog Mathers was sentenced there, he was found guilty of numerous murders and sentenced to die, although hanging him failed. He was thrown into “The Hole”, and underground area inside the prison where a select few prisoners were dumped to die a slow, miserable death. 

Over a century later, the prison is now a museum to honor the rich history. Mr. Gershing runs the business. When a ghost spooks a tour guide and he quits, Mr. Gershing promotes his bookkeeper to also being the guide. Emily is the great-granddaughter of the original warden, only she is on the meek side while her ancestor was stern. Emily does a great job giving tours until a family becomes trapped inside Mad Dog’s cell and suffers frost bite when the temperature drops severely.

Faced with the possibility that Mad Dog’s spirit exists within the prison, Emily calls on a group of ghost hunters she knows. While Emily doesn’t believe in ghosts and thinks the group are phonies, she wants to be sure before giving more tours. Her ex-boyfriend Paul helps to lead the group. Emily and he broke up because she wanted him to grow up by getting a real job. Kurt is his good friend and somewhat opinionated. Charlie is a hippy reject, and Sam is a tomboy, as well as the smart one of the group. The ghost hunters get an occasional job and use the funds to pay a nursing home for looking after Paul’s dying grandmother. When she passes and they learn that their house may be repossessed, they take the job for Emily.

Emily's roommate Miranda invites herself along on the excursion due to her crush on Charlie. Emily spends the night inside the museum with the others. So do Mr. Gershing and the janitor, Billy. As night falls, Mad Dog wreaks havoc. His simple little pranks before have turned into serious threats to human life. Mr. Gershing is murdered, unknown by Emily’s group. They split up to investigate different areas. While Charlie and Miranda make out, Mad Dog causes Miranda to die, then hangs Charlie on the gallows.

Billy saves Emily and Paul from a horrid death, but dies in their place. The locked doors won’t open. Mad Dog snatches Paul and when he returns, he is possessed by the evil spirit, who wants a physical form to feel the life drain from the descendant of his jailer. Emily puts up a fierce fight against him while trying not to hurt the man she loves. When Paul dumps her into The Hole, Emily is forced to deal with an injured ankle as she takes on Paul once again.

Paul fight against Mad Dog, who is relentless. Knowing Emily will die unless he saves her, Paul stabs himself in hopes of dying. Mad Dog’s spirit exits his body but isn’t allowed to ever leave the prison. After Paul dies in Emily’s arms and the police arrive, she is arrested for the grisly murders when no one believes her about the ghost.