In Accendura, a small village in
Basilicata, Italy, three boys—Bruno, Michele and Tonino—engage in mischief. They catch and taunt Giuseppe Barra, a
local simpleton, while he is spying on two locals engaged with visiting prostitutes. Meanwhile, in the hills surrounding the village, Maciara, a reclusive
Gypsy witch, conducts
black magic ceremonies, first by digging up the skeletal remains of an infant and then plunging pins through the heads of three clay dolls. When Bruno goes missing, reporters from all over the country converge on the village. Amid local hysteria, Giuseppe is arrested when he picks up a
ransom he demanded from Bruno's parents for the boy's return. While he leads the police to Bruno's buried body, he insists he only discovered the body and only phoned the parents in a feeble attempt to extract the surprisingly small ransom. When Tonino's body is found, the police realize that Giuseppe is innocent. A few nights later, during a raging thunderstorm, Michele sneaks out of his house to meet with someone he speaks to over the phone, and he too is murdered by an unseen assailant; his body is found the following morning. Andrea Martelli, a journalist from
Rome, meets and befriends Patrizia, whom he recognizes as a former newspaper reporter from
Milan. Patrizia is living at her father's house in the village as she is lying low after a drug scandal. The villagers ostracize Patrizia because of her big-city ways, perceived lack of morality and modern dress style. She also has various seemingly sinister interactions with several children from the town, including Michele, whom she seductively teases, then rejects, while nude. Andrea also meets with the amiable local priest,
Don Alberto Avallone, and his reserved mother, Aurelia. Alberto runs a boys' group at the church, which the victims belonged to, and is respected in the area. The police visit Francesco, an eccentric hermit who practices black magic. Francesco claims to have passed his knowledge to his daughter, Maciara. He is also rumored to have had (and then disposed of) a baby from an
incestuous tryst with Maciara. Angered by his unwillingness to co-operate, the police arrest Maciara. Under questioning, she confesses to the murders. However, it appears that she believes her
Voodoo dolls and
incantations alone caused the deaths, and she professes to have no interest in nor awareness of the physical methods used. An alibi provided by a policeman confirms her innocence. Nonetheless, Maciara is beaten to death by a group of men. The following day, another young boy is found drowned in a local stream. During further meetings with Alberto, Andrea learns that Alberto's mother, Aurelia, has a six-year-old
deaf-mute daughter, Malvina. Andrea becomes convinced that the girl witnessed the killings after seeing that she compulsively pulls the heads off her dolls as if imitating the murders. One doll's head, that of
Donald Duck, is found near the latest crime scene. When Aurelia disappears with her daughter, Andrea and Patrizia track her to a shack near the village. When they arrive, Aurelia is found barely conscious, begging them to stop her son. It is revealed that Alberto killed the boys, not for their sins but to prevent them from sinning when they grow up. Alberto attempts to throw his sister off a cliff, but Andrea arrives just in time. Following a scuffle between the two, Alberto is thrown off the cliff by Andrea and falls to his death. == Cast ==