Flashback: At Blackwood Manor in Providence County, Rhode Island, renowned wildlife painter Lord Blackwood summons his housekeeper to the basement where he reluctantly bludgeons her to death with a hammer and chisel. He removes her teeth, as well as his own, and offers them to mysterious creatures down an ash pit within an old fireplace; all of a sudden, the creatures demand the teeth of children. Blackwood begs for them to give back his kidnapped son, only to be dragged down the ash pit by the creatures.