Successful writer and scholar Jonathan Merrick falls under the spell of the irresistible, bewitchingly beautiful Ligeia. She's fighting a fatal illness and she will stop at nothing to defeat death, her one true enemy. She steals other people's souls and on her quest to immortality she tricks Jonathan into supporting her work, breaking him apart from his fiancй Rowena and pulling him into her dark, mysterious world. They settle down in an old manor by the Black Sea where Ligeia's everlasting presence slowly drives Jonathan to madness.