In Louisiana, a soldier returning from Vietnam finds his wife in bed with her lover, and he kills them both as well as a couple of friends, but he is attacked by a bird, and he loses his eyes. Years later, the bodies have not been found, and the former soldier is now a bird specialist living in a house nearby the swamp. When a group of college students go to the swamp on an assignment to research a species of woodpecker that is almost extinct, they head to Dr. Brown's house to get some tips on how to find the rare bird. They drive through the swamp, where they find the house where the murders happened, and they decide to stay there. During the night, weird things start to happen.