Maud, the young heiress to a fortune, is romantically obsessed by the youthful Byronic painting of her uncle Silas. The arrival of a drunken, drug-addicted governess and an encounter with a brutish young man in a churchyard are the beginnings of a web of deception and terror.

With the reappearance of Madame de la Rougierre, Maud is torn between trust in Uncle Silas and mounting suspicion about a plot on her life. Alone and virtually a prisoner in the grim house, Maud realises too late that she is caught in a lethal trap.