Film Synopsis

The film opens with Eva townsmen and Katie Mill two 18 year olds university students moving into their new home. They are confused yet pleased with the cheap price of the house and are unaware of the previous events that took place. While unpacking and settling in Katie leaves a wary and anxious Eva to look for blankets. Upon opening the cupboard she comes across various newspaper clippings from years ago. She reads on and notices that every article is about the same family, the family who lived in the house she moved into. She flicks through the clippings uncovering a bloody, chilling, horrifying story that terrifies Eva. The twin daughters were brutally murdered by their mother in the house around 30 years ago. The story unfolds that the mother, a keen religious, superstitious figure heard voices in her head, ordering her to kill her children. To kill them as they have sinned and must be punished. The repeated line “kill them before they kill you” serve as the slogan for the film. Each character uses this line in a way of foreshadowing the coming events. A scared Eva brings the spine-tingling story to Katie’s attention, who quickly dismisses it and thinks nothing of the past events.
As Eva starts to research into the family and the story of what happened in her house she starts to grow more and more paranoid. As Eva attempts to sleep, blocking out the information she now knows she hears hushed whispers, a tune of a nursery rhyme and children singing it. The slow chants scare Eva into approaching a cynical Katie who again jokingly teases her and repeatedly pranks Eva, using her fear of the previous family. As Katie leaves to visit her boyfriend for the weekend Eva is left alone, plagued with vivid dreams of the little girls. Keeping herself awake to avoid the dreams she again starts to hear the chants and nursery rhyme tune. Eva’s obsession with uncovering the truth of the twins progresses into seeing glimpses of them. Visualising the girls standing in the hallway the palpable tension smothering Eva, Katie returns and attempts to soothe her petrified friend. Convincing Eva that the glimpses and chants are all in her head and its just due to homesickness. Once Eva begins to conquer her fear and move on Katie’s mind is overcome with violent and sadistic thoughts of hurting those close to her. The thoughts leave Katie to feel overwhelmed with a strange presence slowly filling her brain, resulting in Katie having a violent fit on her bedroom floor. Eva manages to save Katie leaving the girls to console each other with worry. As Katie begins to feel better the thoughts return, pushing her to violently kill Eva’s cat by heartlessly hanging it from the chandelier. A worried Eva seeks help, turning to the one person who truly knows the story. The father of the twin girls, he informs Eva that in order for her mind to be free of the thoughts another must take her place in that haunted home, he explains the house possesses evil and in order to escape it they must leave. Eva worriedly returns home to an ignorant Katie. She attempts to explain what they must do but Katie shakes her off, ignoring her friend and being oddly rude.
Katie’s mind starts to fill with violent thoughts, thoughts of hurting her friend. Eva sinks into a pit of depression, unable to get her friend to leave the house and still feeling paranoid of the little girls Eva commits suicide. Giving up on her life and feeling trapped by the presence in that house, a grief-stricken Katie attempts to move on from the tragic decision of her friend. Noticing her violent thoughts have disappeared, the whispers and rhymes have stopped playing, Katie believes Eva’s death has intervened and got rid of the presence in that house. Katie invites her boyfriend Stuart to live with her, keeping herself in company and busy she moves on. As things become more positive and Katie’s life starts to move forward, she wakes one night to hushed whispers, and a violent dream, this time concerning Stuart. . . . the girls didn’t get to leave afterall.