Darkly Noon (Brendan Fraser) is a young man who has spent his entire life as a member of an ultraconservative Christian cult. He received his unusual name from a passage on the Bible. After a violent altercation that results in the dissolution of the cult and the death of Darkly's parents, a disorientated Darkly wanders into a forest in the Appalachian region of North Carolina and is rescued from exhaustion by a coffin transporter named Jude (Loren Dean) and his friend Callie (Ashley Judd).