Santa Cruz, California was dubbed "Murder Capitol of the World" during the 1970's, when the decade recorded nearly thirty local murders committed by no less than four serial killers. The Curse of Santa Cruz explains that decade of carnage, along with the horrific true and historical events including the demise of the local China Town, Mafia takeover, and even the Ranchero's of the area, all stemmed from an old Indian legend of a curse and the occurrences that lead to the annihilation of the Ohlone Indian Nation. When ex local news reporter Rowanda, now an aging high school teacher, recounts the history of Santa Cruz in a pilot class, she finally got up the nerve to test on her hard to impress students and her past comes back to haunt her. Drawing on her own experiences, including coverage of the bizarre bird attacks on the town (which gave rise to Hitchcock's masterpiece), she begins to engage a very impressionable group of teens. And even though she believes she has completely recovered from her years in a coma, after being left for dead behind the old Front Street Mansion (actual blueprint house for Hitchcock's "Psycho") by a serial killer who wrongly thought his beating had finished her, she is about to open old wounds that take her down new paths. As she and the class begin to take on the town's history as a mystery to be solved, the mystery starts to take them on as well, as the journey becomes one of self-discovery for them all.