After fifty years of declining invitations to attend his high school reunions, Bill Wilder, a retired garage mechanic who lives in Huntington, West Virginia, reluctantly decides to attend an upcoming event, which is taking place in his hometown of Walker, West Virginia-a secluded coal mining town located in the Appalachian Mountains. On the morning of the reunion, Bill packs a small suitcase, throws it in his restored 1948 Ford coupe, and begins the seven hour journey south. Upon the approach to his destination the mountains becomes eerily cold and foggy, and after crossing an old familiar bridge, he enters town to notice that the place hasn't changed since he fled there in nineteen fifty-seven. As it nears reunion time, Bill slowly becomes reacquainted with the denizens of his youth and the horrors of his life as a rebellious teenager.