While doing her rounds in the Scottish countryside, Doctor Caroline Lamar comes upon a hitchhiker, and offers him a lift. Young Danish backpacker Mike Hammershoi explains that he is looking for work in the area, and so she points him in the direction of Black's farm, an isolated steading. Francis Black, the owner, who is blind, and lives there with his ailing mother Bella, and enigmatic young wife Rachel, tells Mike he can work in the yard. But put off by the foreboding atmosphere, Mike declines...