Sean Connery plays a well-read monk who is charged with the tutelage of a young Christian Slater in this drama set during the time of Catholic inquisitions and slaughter. As a level-headed man, not easily swayed by passion, Connery is called upon to solve the mystery surrounding a series of deaths at an abbey he stops to visit. That some men would prefer ignorance and a humorless existence becomes his greatest challenge, not the devil as some try to lead him to believe. Slater, unlike Connery, struggles with passion is a brilliantly innocent force in the film.