In the Mississippi Delta of 1954, Jack Branch has returned to his ancestral home, intent on an act of noblesse oblige. He decided to teach at the local high school, and designs a course called `On Evil, one that will engage his decidedly unsophisticated students. Eddie Miller is one of those students. But he is also the son of the `Coed Killer, a boy already well versed in the vocabulary of evil. When Branch urges Eddie to write a paper on his own father, the best of intentions go horribly wrong.