Well respected author and professor, Jonathan Merrik (Wes Bentley) is drawn to the allure of exotic grad student( into the occult, her family alchemists), Ligeia(Sofya Skya), who has almost perfected the process of "seizing souls", extracting the lifeforce of victims so she can retain her youth and vitality. Young and rich (both his parents are deceased), Jonathan is engaged to a lovely young woman named Rowena(Kaitlin Doubleday), whose father is a pathetic drunk (Michael Madsen). Dark and brooding, Ligeia captivates Jonathan; he's overwhelmed by her haunting beauty and decadent nature. Rowena is an understudy singer who is charming, with a bright wattage smile, the perfect mate for a successful young professor with the world as his oyster, yet Jonathan has his doubts (he's further complicated by how smitten he is with Ligeia). Seductively capturing Jonathan by addressing the darkness inside him, Ligeia will not only attain his hand in marriage but convince him to purchase her old family's manor. Ligeia needs to find a means to keep her illness from overtaking her and this will drive and motivate by whatever methods are necessary. Meanwhile Rowena pines for Jonathan and will hope to win back his heart once Ligeia's true self emerges once and for all revealing to him that he had made a mistake choosing her as his bride. When Ligeia hurls herself from atop the manor to the sidewalk, Jonathan attempts to move on and does so with Rowena. But, Merrik hasn't heard the last of Ligeia who plans to take control of Rowena's body so she can continue to live on, absent a weakened fleshly vessel, but he will fight to win his second bride back. With Eric Roberts wasted in a nothing minuscule part as the manor's Russian caretaker and the vacuous Makenzi Rosman as his troubled niece who live near Jonathan and Ligeia. Ligeia will use Rosman and get rid of Roberts so she can get close to Rowena. Merrik will seek Rosman's help once Rowena has been possessed by Ligeia. In the silly plot of THE TOMB, the spirits are sucked from the bodies of victims, contained in little jars and held in a cabinet by Ligeia, who later stores them for safe keeping hoping they will assist in her experiments for immortality. The spirits of those robbed of their lifeforce appear in a green tinted mist(the face shown as an image within this mist). Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa has a small role as the University Chancellor who Ligeia must destroy in order to keep his knowledge of her diabolical experiments a secret. Bentley barely registers a pulse in his performance leaving Doubleday the task of garnering sympathy from the viewer. Skya is quite easy on the eyes and Doubleday's no slouch(and her transformation once Skya takes over is actually quite convincing)helping to give this movie some much needed juice.