A young wench flees across a dark forest for her very life as her murderous assailant gives chase. But she falls, is raped and then left for dead. With her last dying breath utters the name of her killer...Sir Richard Fordyke.

A few days later Sir Richard Fordyke returns to the vast Fordyke Estate with his lovely bride and second wife, Elizabeth. But talk around the village is of the ghost of Sir Richard’s first wife, who appears on the lawn and accuses Sir Richard of her murder.  When another young girl is brutally murdered in the stables, the villagers swear that they have seen Sir Richard riding through the village at night pursued by the ghostly figure of his first wife. Convinced that the murders are the work of Sir Richard and that madness runs in his family, the villagers decide to descend upon Fordyke Hall and discover the secret of The Black Torment...