In the frozen isolation of a remote country cabin, a young man holds his family at gunpoint. As their survival hangs in the balance, they must face a terrifying reality: that the shadow of madness looms closer that we choose to acknowledge--and sometimes, it is born of our own flesh and blood.

It begins, as shocking events usually do, with a simple lapse in judgement: On February 26, Maurice Coleman is prematurely released from the institution where he is being treated for schizophrenia. After dumping his medications into a stream and buying a semiautomatic at a local gun shop, Maurice makes his way through the bitter snow to his parents' secluded hunting cabin. There, we learn the tragic consequences of Maurice's madness from the broken family that both loves and fears him: Moira, the estranged mother who offers little comfort to Maurice; Nathan, the ex-husband and devoted father, who showers his son with an oblivious love; Crissie, the younger sister, who befriends, despises, and ultimately sees her brother as only a sibling can; and Vince, an outsider with a secret, who finds himself drawn into the final, fateful confrontation.