In the 1850's a Scotsman comes to California with a new bride to build a new home and start a family. Tragedy strikes the entire family. The first born daughter is institutionalized for mental illness, the wife dies in a questionable accident and the patriarch begins to sexually abuse his second daughter. Eventually the patriarch is murdered in his bed. Strange things begin to happen in the house and eventually both his daughters commit suicide. In the 1960's a college psychology professor and a chosen number of his students investigate manifestations in the house. When one of the students dies in the house, the investigation is called off. Then in the 1990's the deceased students mother confronts the professor and tells him that her child is not at rest and begs him to re-enter the house and correct this. He brings together some of the former students he had before plus two others to go back to the house, but they find the house more trecherous and deadlier than ever before.