Christmas Island

Synopsis

• Repressed tech guy Kenneth McAllister returns to his family home on Christmas Island, deep in the wintry Minnesota woods, where his mother Doris has died. • Kenneth loses his phone in the snow. • His father Bill, like the house, is in bad shape. Doris's corpse is still in the bedroom. • Kenneth has a creepy conversation with his dead mother, who blames him for abandoning her. • Kenneth and Bill reminisce. Kenneth has a strange feeling that he and Bill have switched bodies. • Next morning, a snowstorm has cut the house off from the outside world. • Kenneth learns his free-spirit sister Sissy has also stayed the night. • When Doris starts to stink, Kenneth & Sissy put her in the cold shed, where they look through the treasures Doris confiscated when they were kids. • They discover Doris was a frustrated artist, whose former lover Dave had red hair like Kenneth. • A tape of the song Christmas Island by The Andrews Sisters triggers painful memories in Sissy. • Kenneth goes in search of his phone. • He meets an ethereal Indigenous Woman naked in the snow. She reminds Kenneth of their first meeting at age 16, when Bill brought him to lose his virginity to a young girl lured into prostitution by Bill's girlfriend. Kenneth discovers he was unknowingly responsible for her death. • Sissy finds out Doris was into occult spells from Sissy's old magic books. From her corpse, Doris makes Sissy unknowingly read a spell that brings Doris back to life. • The Woman punishes Kenneth by sending him back home, to a fate potentially worse than death. • Next morning, the snow has melted and the phone lines are up. Sissy goes out to chop firewood. • Undertaker Sam Cribben Jr calls: he's coming for Doris. Bill sends Kenneth for her body. • Sissy finds Bill hanging from a tree down back, frozen dead. She runs to find Kenneth. They enter the shed to find Doris is gone. • Bill locks Kenneth & Sissy in the shed. • From Doris's notes, Kenneth & Sissy discover that their parents are both dead, but have found how to keep their ghosts alive until they can switch bodies with Sissy & Kenneth. • Doris & Bill go out to the shed to steal their children's bodies. When the dust clears: * Doris is in Kenneth's body * Bill is in Sissy's body * Kenneth is in Bill's corpse hanging on the tree * Sissy is in Doris's corpse in the house. • Bill in Sissy wants to get it on with Doris in Kenneth. She responds positively. • Kenneth in Bill discovers he can move, gets free. He shambles, zombie-like, to the house with an axe, but is overpowered by his parents. Doris and Bill go into the bedroom to "talk privately" in their children's bodies. • Sissy in Doris dictates a spell to Kenneth, who forces Bill's dead mouth to say it out loud, to kick their parents out of their bodies and repossess themselves. • Bill & Doris end up in undertaker Sam Jr and wife Shirley's bodies, and vow revenge. • Kenneth and Sissy go through family documents in the shed. They learn that Kenneth is indeed Doris's by red-haired Dave, and Sissy is Bill's from some other woman, so they are not related at all. The lights go out. • Bill and Doris in Sam Jr and Shirley have trapped Kenneth & Sissy in the shed and set it on fire. • Sissy & Kenneth find a spell that lets them enter Sam & Shirley's heads and battle their parents. • Finally everyone, including Bill and Doris, is sent back to their own body. • Kenneth and Sissy struggle to come to terms with their new relationship. Kenneth believes they are meant to be together, notwithstanding his current girlfriend; Sissy points out their fundamental incompatibilities. They agree to take time and figure it out. • In the hearse back to town, Bill and Doris beg Sissy and Kenneth not to bury them and condemn them to an eternity underground. Their children agree to cremate them and let them go wherever they should have. Part 2 is hinted at. • Kenneth and Sissy gaze out opposite windows, hand in hand, as the hearse rolls into the night.