FULL SYNOPSIS
Maggie, age 9, finds a sparrow with a broken wing while out walking in the hills. She takes it home, hoping to nurse it back to health, but when a candle tips over onto the tinsel Christmas star she’s using as a “nest”, her attempt to save the bird becomes an animal sacrifice in a flaming pentagram.
A crack opens up in the darkest corner of the cupboard under the stairs all the way down to hell and four demonic imps creep out. Maggie hides, terrified, but when the imps find her, they kneel. And direct her to the darkest corner of the cupboard, where she finds the devil waiting for her. The devil asks Maggie what she wants - she says “to fly away”, so he offers her a deal. He will give her the gift of flight and if she can master it and fly away in 12 days she will be free forever, but if she can’t, then her soul is forfeit. Maggie agrees.
Over the next few days, Maggie tries to fly. She falls a hundred times. She manages to get off the ground, just, but not even high enough to get over the garden wall. When she asks the devil for advice, he tells her no one can teach her how to fly but he can tell her the truth when everybody lies.
On a family visit, Maggie blurts out to her grandfather that she can fly. He challenges her to prove it and laughs with malicious glee when she falls on her face. Burning with shame, Maggie hears the devil whisper in her ear that he knows how to kill the old man. Maggie insists she only wants to teach him a lesson, so the devil directs her to fly to the churchyard at midnight to take ivy from a grave. Maggie secretly tastes the vine to make sure it will not kill Grandad and it makes her delirious. In this state, she discovers the imps trashing and burning her family’s dearest possessions. She joins in. In the morning, Maggie is mortified to find out it wasn’t a dream. But the police take the family’s fingerprints to rule them out - no one suspects a thing.
Maggie slips the ivy into grandad’s gin. But he doesn’t become delirious, he dies immediately. After the funeral, Maggie goes to speak to the devil in the cupboard under the stairs, but finds grandad instead, come up from hell to hold her accountable for his death. Maggie escapes and screams at the top of her lungs, but her mother insists that everyone ignore her - she’s just looking for attention.
Maggie packs her things to leave for good and flies away to a different neighbourhood. A man coaxes her inside his house and tries to make her touch his penis. Maggie runs. The Devil soothes her - he’ll show her how to summon a demon to kill the pervert tomorrow.
Maggie’s brother finds her digging a tiny grave for her soul, it seems she will give herself to the devil after all. She tells her brother she pissed on his school work and burst his football. They fight and Maggie flies to get away - she makes it to the top of the tallest tree in the garden. And her family actually see her. Maggie is thrilled - until she falls and twists her leg badly.
That night, Maggie can hear the imps run through the house. She limps downstairs. Her time is up. But when Maggie sees the little sparrow in the devil’s hands, she can’t help herself, she grabs it and runs. She makes it to the top of the tree and flies into the night sky - but the imps chase her and drag her back down, hitting every branch on the way, through the house to the darkest corner of the cupboard.
Years later, Maggie is grown. She looks exactly as though the devil is a woman now. Maggie has returned to her childhood home for her father’s funeral. At first, she manages to play nice. She is polite to the minister, she graciously thanks the guests. But when she spies the pervert at the wake, the chasm under the stairs opens up again. But instead of the devil, Maggie’s childhood self crawls out. Little Maggie tells Big Maggie that when she buried the little bird under the tree she messed up her deal with the devil - she has a foot in both worlds. She has to choose. If she wants the devil’s help she has to make another sacrifice, if she wants to be a part of her family’s reality, she has to pretend that everything is alright.
Maggie searches for the bird she buried all those years ago under the tree, but it has long turned to dust. She cannot contemplate sacrificing her mother’s dog or her brother’s kids so she tries to poison the pervert. It doesn’t work. Upset that her mother is encouraging people to sponsor “Stuart” for a children’s charity, Maggie finally tells her that he made her touch his penis when she was little. Maggie’s mum questions Maggie’s memory, enraging her further. And when Maggie asks her childhood friend Katie for help, she also says she cannot take Maggie’s word for it.
Maggie contemplates her second option, acting as though everything is normal until she believes it. But when she sees the pervert start to take his leave, she finds she cannot pretend. Maggie enlists her nephew and niece to help her summon a demon. The demon crashes the pervert’s car and kills him. Maggie stays to make sure the pervert is dead, but this time the demon does not disappear, he turns on the funeral guests. At first, her brother and the guests can see the demon and the imps as they cause mayhem and destruction. But Maggie watches as they keep reverting back to more realistic explanations.
Big Maggie goes to tell Little Maggie she doesn’t need the devil any more. Little Maggie reveals that the chasm under the stairs isn’t the route to hell, this time it’s the way out. So Big Maggie follows her through and finds it opens out on the hill. Little Maggie takes to the air. At first, Big Maggie pulls her down, but finally, she realises she has to let the little bird go. Maggie is left alone on the hill, high above the town and it feels like flying.