Steeped in depression and trying to escape his past and his problems, entrepreneur Teddy Whitaker hops aboard a freight train through the Ozark Mountains. Startled by a mysterious stranger who appears to him in a boxcar, Teddy discovers that in order to defeat the darkness and reclaim his life, he must learn three lessons before Christmas morning. If he succeeds, he will become a new man. If he fails, he will lose his life. Yet, deep in the thick woods of Missouri stalks a certain evil, an evil determined to see Teddy to fail.