In 1928 England, David Ash (Aidan Quinn), an American professor, has spent a majority of his life working in the field of parapsychology to disprove the existence of ghosts. He was motivated by the untimely death of his twin sister, Juliet, for which he blames himself. As a professor at Oxford University, he receives a series of urgent entreaties from a Ms. Webb, who claims she is being tormented by ghosts, to come and help her. David travels to Sussex, where he is picked up at the railway station by the beautiful Christina Mariell (Kate Beckinsale). Christina explains that Ms. Webb is in fact their Nanny Tess (Anna Massey), and that she wrote to David at the urging of the Mariell siblings, Christina, Robert and Simon. The siblings are concerned for her mental health and believe her belief in ghosts is due to her senility. She drives David to the palatial Edbrook House, where he meets Christina's two brothers and the withdrawn Nanny Tess.