In the Mississippi Delta of 1954, the aristocratic son of a famed Delta family, Jack Branch has returned to his ancestral home, intent on an act of noblesse oblige. He decides to teach at the local high school, and designs a course called 'On Evil', one that will prove a sure-fire attraction to 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 awry.
