Eighteen-year-old Justin Hopkins ekes out a living writing freelance articles for magazines. When he receives an offer from his psychiatrist uncle to help write about ground-breaking research, Justin jumps at the chance. He travels to his Uncle Blake's isolated ranch with hopes of big-time publication. There, however, he is held captive and worn down, physically and mentally, by Blake and his followers-all, as Blake professes, to make Justin as ' strong as possible, ' in body and mind. Can Justin survive the torment? Or will he succumb and join the others, even bring harm to someone else, now believing it will make them as 'strong as possible?