Decorated Iraq war hero Sgt. Brandon King makes a celebrated return to his small Texas hometown following his tour of duty. He tries to resume the life he left behind. Then, against Brandon’s will, the Army orders him back to duty in Iraq, which upends his world. The conflict tests everything he believes in: the bond of family, the loyalty of friendship, the limits of love and the value of honor.

Not all Christmas stories are full of cheer - take the disturbing childhood of Billy Lenz, for example. Born during Christmas, little Billy Lenz suffered from Jaundice because of a liver defect, and was unwanted by his cruel mother (who only saw the husband she’d come to despise when she looked at her son). While she let her true feelings be known to him with beatings and abuse, only his father showed him compassion like a parent should. But on Christmas Eve in 1975, his unfaithful mother gave him one of the most cruelest gifts of all, as she made five-year-old Billy observe his beloved father’s brutal murder at her own hands and those of her lover with a claw hammer. Before burying him under the house, she locked Billy in the attic for good, to hold his silence of what he’d witnessed that night. His only contact from then on was when she came to punish him for making a noise or other such trivial nuisances, while she was with her lover and starting a “new” family. As Billy’s mother fell pregnant with a daughter and treated her with love, which Billy had never experienced with his mother, Billy came out of the attic on Christmas Eve 1991, taking a rolling pin to his mother’s head, and a pointed tree ornament to her lovers eye before leaving his sister as disfigured as he was by blinding her. Before he could finish the job police forced there way in and dragged him off to mental institution and his sister a foster home, whose eye sight was saved in one eye… but not the other. Cut to the present where a security guard has been monitoring Billy’s progress since he came into his care, back in 1991. Knowing full well that during this time for fifteen years, Billy has made a break from this asylum, but never succeeding… until now. Far away, his childhood home is now a sorority house, where nine sisters and their house-mother are celebrating the holiday season together …but tonight they’re about to get a surprise visitor… and it’s not Santa.

Donnie Darko gets along badly with his family, with his teachers and with his classmates; but he does manage to find a sympathetic friend in Gretchen, who agrees to date him; and he has a compassionate psychiatrist, who discovers hypnosis is the means to unlock hidden secrets. His other companion may not be a true ally. Donnie has a friend named Frank, who is either a large purple bunny, or man in a large purple bunny costume. Either way, Donnie is the only one who can see him. When an engine falls off a plane and destroys his room, Donnie is not there. Both the event, and Donnie’s escape, seem to have been caused by supernatural events. Donnie’s mental illness, if such it is, may never allow him to find out for sure.

After twelve years in prison, Walter arrives in an unnamed city, moves into a small apartment across the street from an elementary school, gets a job at a lumberyard, and mostly keeps to himself. A quiet, guarded man, Walter finds unexpected solace from Vickie, a tough-talking woman who promises not to judge him for his history. But Walter cannot escape his past. A convicted sex offender, Walter is warily eyed by his brother-in-law, shunned by his sister, lives in fear of being discovered at work, and is hounded by a suspicious local police officer, Detective Lucas. After befriending a young girl in a neighborhood park, Walter must also grapple with the terrible prospect of his own reawakened demons.