Despite warnings from the townspeople, Victoria Winters accepts the offer to come to the strange Collins House as governess. For some curious reason she feels the secret of her past may be uncovered in the bleak manor high on Widow's Hill. From the moment she arrives, Victoria becomes the target of someone in the house determined to destroy her. As the wind moans and the rain lashes around the isolated Collins House, Victoria, without friends in the manor, feels death close in on her, a choking, frightening death.