Ever since she was raped and mutilated as a child by her family's gardener, Berton Mitchell, Mary Bergen has exhibited clairvoyant abilities. With the help of her older brother Alan and husband Max, she aids the police in their murder investigations. Unfortunately, she can only sense pieces of a crime as they happen in real time. A few days before Christmas, Mary thwarts a serial killer from claiming another victim. After the ordeal, Alan, who has always been jealous of Max for coming into his sister's life and taking over his role as her helper, tries to persuade her once again to leave him. She refuses. He accepts her decision and leaves for a vacation. Mary and Max travel home to spend the holidays at their mansion. However, she suddenly has a strong vision of four women being murdered sometime in the future. This has never happened before, as previously she could only have visions as they happen in real time. Max tries to tell her it was just a dream, but is unsure. The next morning, a news report comes on detailing the murder of four women who lived together by a single assailant. Mary thinks she recognizes one of the victims. Mary attends the weekly meeting with her psychiatrist, who tries to help her get over the traumatic childhood event by reliving it. She remembers beating wings and an awful voice whispering to her. However, before she can remember Mitchell's face, several glass figurines in the office fly off the shelves and begin pelting the two. After a few minutes, the commotion stops. That night, Mary has another vision of the same killer murdering three people at a hair salon. Once again, just as she goes to picture the killer's face, Max's gun animates and begins shooting at them. The couple become convinced that they are being haunted by a poltergeist trying to hinder Mary's visions. The next morning, another news report comes out confirming the triple homicide took place. Shortly afterwards, Mary gets another vision that the killer is going to climb a tower in the town of King's Point and snipe residents on Christmas Eve. With the blessing of a police chief she knows, Percy Osterman, her and Max travel there to stop the attack. Also residing in King's Point is Mary's longtime friend and journalist Lou Pasternak, who they stay with. The three try to figure out who the killer is. Berton Mitchell's spirit is brought up, but Mary knows he committed suicide in his jail cell shortly before his trial, always claiming that he was innocent. They ask Osterman to investigate Mitchell's wife and son, who they assume to still be alive. The next day, Mary tries to see the killer's face again. However, a flock of seagulls attack her and Max and don't let up until she stops trying. They then travel to the King's Point police station, where they manage to convince the skeptical sheriff, John Patmore, to place officers in every tower in the town. However, no attack takes place, much to Patmore's frustration. Afterwards, while eating dinner at Lou's, Mary has another vision of a woman she thinks she recognizes being murdered that night by the killer. The next day, the three receive two pieces of bad news. The familiar woman Mary saw is found dead, and Osterman calls to reveal that Mitchell's wife and son died in an arson attack on their trailer decades previously. Convinced that the sniper attack will really happen, she convinces Lou and Max to drive her to a closed fun center with a tower that night. Mary and Max break into the center while Lou waits in the car as a lookout. Mary is wracked with more visions of flapping wings and memories of her childhood assault. She waits at the top of the tower while Max waits at the bottom of the stairs. The killer arrives and stabs Lou to death before proceeding inside, where he attacks and wounds Max. He manages to play dead while the killer, revealed to be Alan, climbs the stairs and shows himself to his sister. Mary flashes back to her assault and realizes it was Alan who attacked her, not Berton Mitchell. He tied her to the floor of Mitchell's cottage before biting her, slashing her with a knife, and stuffing a live bat up her vagina, where her memory of flapping wings came from. While she was in a coma in the hospital, her brother managed to place false memories and a psychic hold onthe incident by telling all the terrible things he would do to her if she ever spoke of what really happened. All the "poltergeist" incidents were Mary's own powers acting against her due to the hold. Alan also reavals that he was the one that mudered Mitchell's wife and son, and that all the victims Mary recognized were old girlfriends of his. Bleeding profusely, Max manages to exit the center and get the attention of arriving cops and Patmore, who mistakes him for the killer and shoots him. Mary, now knowing the truth, uses her pyshic powers to make the bats that live in the tower attack Alan. He falls down the stairs and breaks his neck. A few weeks later, she attends Lou's funeral and goes to visit a recovering Max in the hospital. She happily reveals she is not afraid of the dark anymore.
