Dr. John Markway, an anthropologist with an interest in psychic phenomena, takes two specially selected women to Hill House, a reportedly haunted mansion. Eleanor, a lonely, eccentric woman with a supernatural event in her past, and the bold Theodora, who has ESP, join John and the mansion's heir, cynical Luke. They are immediately overwhelmed by strange sounds and events, and Eleanor comes to believe the house is alive and speaking directly to her.?