At an elite, old-fashioned boarding school in New England, a passionate English teacher inspires his students to rebel against convention and seize the potential of every day, courting the disdain of the stern headmaster.
Mysterious deaths and unexplained disappearances begin to occur in the small seaport village of Graves Point. When a large, strange claw is discovered on an empty raft washing up on the shore, marine biologist Dr. Herbert Talley identifies it as belonging to a rare giant squid.