When a concert pianist envisions her own coffin in her drawing room, she doubts her sanity. No one else sees it or hears a phantom organ's funeral music in the isolated, haunted mansion. Wealthy, but plain Mildred's been housebound with a weak heart, tended by her sensual sister and ne'er-do-well husband, who Mildred dangles on a short financial leash.
France, 1875. A condemned man learns of a legal loophole that he would be pardoned if the executioner dies before his execution. He then enlists his wife in a scheme to make sure that this improbable scenario comes to pass.
An aging millionaire survives being buried alive, but his devilish fiancée plans to take advantage of his next cataleptic seizure, by marrying him and then making sure he stays in his grave. Then the gorgeous Victorine will inherit his estate, and run off with her young lover, a painter. But the cataleptic millionaire and his loyal physician Dr. Thorn take every possible measure to allow him to survive another mistaken entombment.
In 1661 Elspeth Clewer is burned as a witch, cursing her family with her dying breath. Three hundred years to the day afterward, Lady Margaret Clewer returns to her ancestral home to claim her inheritance and finds the ghost of Elspeth trying to seize her body so she can walk the Earth once more.
A family of cannibalistic thieves menace a young couple, but the husband laughs off their scary Southern hotel as a joke. The lovebirds became lost on a second honeymoon and sought shelter in the spooky Baits Hotel, but were quickly locked in by the Carta Family. The gorgeous wife Rosalynn is appalled to find the Cartas have a private jail cell, containing haggard female relative Ruth Carta, who pleads for the young woman to release her.
Dragging a murder victim to burial is just 1 chore a servant undertakes to become the last Sommerville standing, to win a wealthy old woman's inheritance. As a distant relative, Ursula steps up her elimination contest when a closer, desperate Sommerville arrives to drain off some of his aunt's estate for a business bailout.
After the murder of a London doctor, emotionally disturbed Sylvia Lawrence secretly sends a letter to her ex-lover Donald revealing that her husband Andrew is holding her a virtual prisoner at their remote vacation home; Andrew claims to be protecting her but what is he really hiding? And why is he being blackmailed by the late doctor's nurse?
Milquetoast plans bumping off his spouse, unaware the nosy sisters across the street just killed one's husband. Layabout Maynard has a cozy love nest for his kept woman Babs, but his stingy wife severely cramps his cheating style, so the would-be bon vivant accelerates his scheme.
A medieval curse has hung over the Mervyn family for three hundred years, dictating that there will be a murder in the clan in every generation. A young American visitor is determined to break the curse by solving the riddle of the mysterious locked cabinet in the murder room.
Two tales of terror centering on communicating with the dead. In the first, an elderly morgue attendant can speak to the cadavers in his charge and he learns the identity of the gunman who killed a noted racketeer. In the second story, a greedy nephew returns to his family home in the Lousiana bayou to claim his inheritance but why does his dotty old aunt insist that he is dead?
White magic practitioner Amos Wilder kills himself after securing his nephew's sworn promise to guard his body against evil spirits. The nephew must never leave his uncle's mansion, to protect the shire from the return of black necromancer Bentley, cast back to Hell by Wilder.
Cissy Hawk's farm keeps gaining massive blue ribbon hogs, while the passing drifters she hires magically disappear. Well-read grifter Jason Longfellow figures he'll last a lot longer at her Isle of Aiaie via blackmail, but seductive Cissy keeps local Sheriff Ulysses wound around her finger tighter than a pig's tail.
Family that kills together seeks to stay together in style, by icing the heir of one of their victims, before she comes into her inheritance. If the heiress audits the books, she'll discover that the family has already blown her share of the estate. Her newlywed sister was backed off a cliff while having her photo snapped, so the younger sister is understandably leery of heights, but not of her very understanding new in-laws.
A murder outside a traveling wax museum attracts the attention of the police--and a European detective who claims that the wax figures of murderers are brought to life by black magic so they can kill again.
Three men try to drown a young woman, fearing she's a witch. A wandering painter pulls her from the river, refusing to believe in such rural superstition. The young artist shelters her, but her elderly aunt who rules the 18th Century Italian countryside via supernatural power, plots to keep her niece as a sorcerer's apprentice - no matter what.
Woman & her jumpy black cat Baba increasingly besieged by amorous loon of a cabbie, power outages, and menacing sounds throughout her isolated home during a devastating storm. The newlywed just returned early from 2 weeks caring for her sister. As she prays for her husband's arrival, she decides to confront strange sounds emanating from the storm cellar.
An aging actress tries for a comeback in a film about a witch hanged for murder. As a stunt she insists on wearing the historical woman's wig, which turns out to be cursed, changing her into a literal man-killer.
An Irish mail-order bride marries into a family in North Carolina, with a scheme to steal their hidden fortune. She murders her autocratic father-in-law and hides his body inside a scarecrow--but the vengeful scarecrow is now stalking her.
Mass murderer's descendant plots quicker inheritance options when his ill, rich uncle Pontifex, takes up with Queenie De Lyte, a stripper turned art fancier. A psychologist cured Pontifex's obsession with restoring ancient family homes, destroying nephew Tundifer's hope of having Pontifex declared incompetent. Tundifer looks exactly like his evil ancestor, a portrait of whom hangs in one family mansion, whose expensive renovation may include a portal to a prior century.
Undertaker Carl Somers murders his nagging wife so he can head west to marry a wealthy spinster. The joke's on him though: eloping with the old maid gets her disinherited, leaving him with another unwanted wife. A new doctor in town hiding from a murder charge comes in handy at this point.
Apparent "family man" Guy Guthrie murders his mistress when she threatens to expose him, then his wife when she figures out what he's done. But what will he do about his beloved teenage son when the boy begins to puzzle out that his father killed his mother?
An author is murdered when his book exposing an ex-employer, a secretive international financier, is to be published. A reporter tracks the case, but everyone he tries to interview dies under suspicious circumstances. Meanwhile, the financier gets a comic fired because he's obsessed with ensnaring the funny-man's girlfriend, a leggy nightclub chanteuse.
Jacob Grant and John Paterson, a pair of Victorian-era bodysnatchers, turn to murder to supplement their income. First they take Grant's visiting sister-in-law, then set their sights on the unsuspecting boarders.
2 twisted tales of timid people hitting their breaking point. A philandering investor dreams of independence from his wife, a wealthy, bold geologist, but when his latest scheme plummets down the big board, Myron plots murder. Alice Quimby's entire life is her work at a university library, but she's passed over to be chief librarian, in favor of Dr. Wilford Bliss, a martinet who's going to clean house, forcing her out before she can collect her pension.