 Barbara and Adam Maitland decide to spend their vacation decorating their idyllic Connecticut country home . As the two are driving home from a trip to town , Barbara swerves to avoid a dog and the car plunges into a river . After they return home , she and Adam notice that they now lack reflections and they discover a Handbook for the Recently Deceased . They then begin to suspect that they did not survive the car accident ; Adam attempts to leave the house but finds himself in a strange , otherworldly landscape covered in sand and populated by enormous sandworms . 
