The story: a university professor who debunks fake manifestations of supernatural events is called to a mansion in England. An old nanny there, he's told, is convinced that the mansion is haunted, or peopled by demonic beings. He travels there, and discovers two brothers and a sister along with the nanny, and the three siblings behave rather strangely, considering.
The nanny is easily frightened, but as the professor, David Ash, stays at the mansion, strange and inexplicable things start happening. Things become weird, then weirder, with fires breaking out, strange noises, and things keeping him from opening the door of his guest room. He sees an image of a young girl, looking remarkably like his late twin sister, but when he tries to follow her, he can never catch her, despite that she's walking and he's running.
Ash is attracted to the sister, whom he eventually has sex with, but she also seems to be attracted, incestuously, to her younger brother. With all this going on, he slowly uncovers secrets, including the death of the sibling's mother, a suicide.
Major spoiler ahead.
Eventually, he discovers that the siblings and the nanny are all dead, and have been so for years. The mother (and we never see her ghost) killed herself because of her children's actions. The siblings try to induce Ash to join them, but the ghost of his twin sister saves Ash from that fate ... at least to the end of the film.
But a film should be internally consistent, and this one isn't. If the nanny and siblings were dead years before Ash visited the mansion, who kept calling his office, pestering him to come? How did the sister pick him up from the railroad station in a car, if neither she nor the car were "real"? How did Ash eat, sleep, and telephone to his office if the mansion had been empty and in partial ruins for years? Most unsatisfactory! If you see this one, you'll have to suspend not only disbelief, but reason, and logic.
The nanny is easily frightened, but as the professor, David Ash, stays at the mansion, strange and inexplicable things start happening. Things become weird, then weirder, with fires breaking out, strange noises, and things keeping him from opening the door of his guest room. He sees an image of a young girl, looking remarkably like his late twin sister, but when he tries to follow her, he can never catch her, despite that she's walking and he's running.
Ash is attracted to the sister, whom he eventually has sex with, but she also seems to be attracted, incestuously, to her younger brother. With all this going on, he slowly uncovers secrets, including the death of the sibling's mother, a suicide.
Major spoiler ahead.
Eventually, he discovers that the siblings and the nanny are all dead, and have been so for years. The mother (and we never see her ghost) killed herself because of her children's actions. The siblings try to induce Ash to join them, but the ghost of his twin sister saves Ash from that fate ... at least to the end of the film.
But a film should be internally consistent, and this one isn't. If the nanny and siblings were dead years before Ash visited the mansion, who kept calling his office, pestering him to come? How did the sister pick him up from the railroad station in a car, if neither she nor the car were "real"? How did Ash eat, sleep, and telephone to his office if the mansion had been empty and in partial ruins for years? Most unsatisfactory! If you see this one, you'll have to suspend not only disbelief, but reason, and logic.