In 1945, Grace Stewart awakens one day from a nightmare in the immediate aftermath of World War II. She lives in a remote country house in Jersey with her two young children, Anne and Nicholas, who have a rare disease characterized by photosensitivity (possibly xeroderma pigmentosum). Grace hires three new servants— housekeeper Mrs. Bertha Mills, gardener Edmund Tuttle, and a mute girl named Lydia. Mrs. Mills explains to Grace that she worked in the same house many years before. When odd events occur at the house, Grace begins to fear there are unknown "others" present. Anne claims to have seen a group of people in the house several times: a man, a woman, an old woman and a child called Victor, who claimed that "the house is theirs". After Grace hears footsteps and unknown voices, she orders the house to be searched. She then finds a 19th-century photo album of mourning portrait photographs. When Grace asks Mrs. Mills about her previous experience in the house, Mrs. Mills recounts that many left due to an outbreak of tuberculosis.