Mark Omney is a struggling writer, and has a drink problem; his wife Clare is more successful as a journalist. After a dinner-party they host ends badly, they part company the next morning on separate business. Clare becomes ill after an interview assignment, and crashes her car; meanwhile Mark meets former girlfriend Annabelle in the pub. After Clare is taken to a private clinic nearby by Good Samaritans, Mark finds she seems to have mysteriously disappeared

A rich but miserly old man taunts his relatives about who will get his money when he dies, and is soon mysteriously murdered. It turns out that he has left his estate to a beautiful young actress whom the other relatives didn't know was related to him. Several attempts on her life are thwarted by a detective, who sets out to discover who's behind the scheme to kill her.

A group of potential heirs gather in a forbidding old house to learn which of them will inherit a fortune. Later, they learn that a flesh-rending maniac is loose.