Aidan Spindle

Pre A& A: From Within
It begins with a teenage girl, Natalie sitting with her boyfriend Shaun as he reads from a black book in a foreign language. As he finishes reading, he kisses Natalie passionately. Natalie evidently believes he wants to have sex with her - until he pulls out a gun and commits suicide.

Back in the main town a dowdy high school girl, Lindsay is shopping with her alcoholic mother, Trish, for new church clothes. As they argue, Natalie bursts into the shop, which is owned by her father, covered in blood and mumbling about a girl following her. Her father takes her into the back room, and goes to call the police. Lindsay watches over her and notices the black book she holds.

On Monday at school Lindsay's putative boyfriend, Dylan, who is the son of the local evangelist Pastor Joe, is found publicly attacking Aiden, a newly-returned local misfit. Dylan blames Aiden's family for the recent deaths, given their reputation for witchcraft. Following the one-sided fight, in which Aiden refuses to particpate, Lindsay helps him with his minor wounds and drives him home. It turns out that Aiden's brother is Shaun, the young man who killed himself at the start but whose death has been overshadowed by Natalie's. Aiden reveals that his mother, long thought of as a Satanist, was actually a fan of children - only adults made her uneasy. Aiden also reveals that his mother was murdered by local townsfolk, not as a result of an accident as previously declared.

Simultaneously, Lindsay becomes aware of the religious fervor Dylan is stirring up against Aiden among the townsfolk and goes to warn him of the danger. On entering his house, she meets his cousin, Sadie who had travelled down from New York for Aiden's brother Shaun's funeral. Lindsay's warnings fall on deaf ears.

Aiden takes Lindsay to a stream running underneath a bridge, and confirms that his mother practiced a form witchcraft, which may be the cause of the suicides. He tells her to get away from Grovetown. Lindsay arrives home that night and is abducted by Dylan and Roy, Trish's lover, with Trish's consent. She is taken to the local church to be "purified" as the evangelists start to believe they are cursed because Lindsay has fraternized with Aiden. Returning home that night, Trish is jubilant about "being daved" but is later haunted by doppelgangers of herself on the television. After being stalked throughout the house, Trish's doppelganger compels her to drink bleach, believing it to be whisky.

Lindsay finds Trish's body immediately afterwards. She rushes to Aiden's house, frantic in her belief that a curse has gotten inside of her and will demand her death. Aiden admits that victims of the curse see themselves, but swears that all victims commit suicide because they are compelled to, not because something takes them over. Aiden supplies Lindsay with an oil on her skin that will slow the progress of the curse. Aiden realizes that the black book is the key to lock up what Shaun had unlocked.

Lindsay suggests the church as the new location of the book and Lindsay and Aiden break in. Lindsay the ghost is still after her, but they grab the book and leave before the ghost can draw close.

On reviewing the book, Aiden realizes that he needs more supplies to stop the curse.

Dylan, Roy, Pastor Joe and another strong believer in Jesus, Paul realize that Aiden retrieved the book. Pastor Joe reveals that he suffers guilt over what happened to Aiden's mother, Candice. After Roy and Paul leave, Pastor Joe confesses to Dylan that it was he who had killed Jimmy, the returned veteran Aiden's mother was accused of killing, in order to cover up an affair between Joe and Jimmy. Dylan is disgusted and leaves, but refuses to let Pastor Joe reveal the truth.

Back at Aiden's home Sadie pulls a gun on Aiden and Lindsay; she wants the book and explains that Shaun deliberately killed himself at the start of the film in order for the curse to start. Sadie reveals that the curse was originally Aiden's idea, as he wanted everyone in Grovetown dead. Shocked, Lindsay refuses to go with him, but Aiden says that if Sadie destroys the book, she'll die.

They manage to rescue the book just as Sadie attempts to burn it. Paul, Roy and Dylan burst into the home, unannounced. Aiden and Lindsay escape to the woods, Dylan and Paul following as Roy guards Sadie. Whilst running, Aiden and Lindsay split, intending to meet up at the pier. Dylan has a rifle and it attempting to shoot Aiden.

In the woods, Lindasay makes it to the pier, but her doppelganger ghost is hot on her tail. She stops at the edge of the platform and starts reciting a prayer, when she falls into the water.

Meanwhile Dylan continues to hunt Aiden but he is surprised from behind by Aiden. Aiden puts Sadie's gun to Dylan's head and is about to murder him when Lindsay's screams for help draw him away. He pistol whips Dylan instead and runs off to find her.

Lindsay panics in the water as her doppelganger emerges from the water behind her. Lindsay quickly climbs out of the water alive, then blood drips onto her back, the ghost's eye is bleeding as Lindsay sits up. The ghost grabs the rope and hands it to Lindsay, who starts to wrap it around her own neck, the ghosts hands moving in the same motion as hers before tightening it and making Lindsay strangle herself.

Aiden rushes to her and stops her, they continue with dispelling the curse, he merges his own blood with Shaun's on the book, when he says to Lindsay that a sacrifice started the curse so a sacrifice must end it. Aiden passionately kisses her and tells her to burn the book, before seemingly shooting himself.

Dylan and Paul then show up, Dylan believing Lindsay to be a devil worshipper he pulls his gun on her. Lindsay stands, Sadie's gun in her hands as she begs Dylan to walk away, as he's about to shoot Lindsay gets him in the chest first. Paul quickly runs off. Not long after the cops arrive, but they find that Aiden's sacrifice doesn't count; Dylan had actually shot him in the chest as Aiden was pointing the gun at his own head.