A journalist challenges the authenticity of Edgar Allan Poe's stories (which are presented in the context of the film as Poe's eyewitness accounts of the supernatural, not as literary fiction). To prove himself, the journalist accepts a bet from Lord Blackwood to spend the night in a haunted castle on All Soul's Eve. Ghosts of the murdered inhabitants appear to him throughout the night, re-enacting the events that led to their deaths. One of the ghosts reveals that they all need his blood in order to maintain their existence. Barbara Steele plays a ghost who attempts to help the journalist escape.