Bankrupt and desperate, Captain Torstein Grøn of the whaling ship, Håpet decides to gamble with the lives of his crew to save his fortune. With winter closing in and the ice encroaching, he makes the dangerous choice to chase one final catch, a vanishing pod of bowhead whales.
But when his crew discovers a stricken whaler locked dead in the sea ice, it seems his prayers have been answered. The ghost ship's hold is full of oil, enough to free the captain from his debts and save his family from ruin.
The captain soon realises that they retrieved more than just oil from that ghost ship as a darkness descends upon the Håpet and the miracle from Heaven quickly turns into a nightmare from Hell.
