A mental patient with a violent past is released from the institution, against the advice of his doctors, and sent back to his old neighborhood. Realizing that he can't handle the pressures of big-city life, and not wanting to commit the kinds of crimes that got him put away in the first place, he hops a bus heading out of the city and winds up in a small coastal town. Taking a room in a small motel, he falls for the daughter of the motel's owner, and everything seems to be going well for him, until the girl's father starts to get suspicious about his past.