- Jonathan Frid portrays a horror novelist who has a recurring nightmare about three figures out of his book who terrorize him and his family and friends during a weekend of fun. Then the dream becomes reality and it never ends...—<Blythe379@cs.com>
- A horror story writer, Edmond Blackstone, suffers from a recurring nightmare in which three bizarre figures terrorize him and his family. When Blackstone begins to write, the three figures appear at his home and the dream becomes reality.—Anonymous
- A man almost screams, startled, when a child wakes him up. They boy excuses himself saying "mum told me to wake you up." He is Edmund Blackstone (Jonathan Frid) goes to the bathroom to shave himself. There, his wife asks him how he is: he says that the had the same dream again. Nicole Blackstone (Christina Pickles)goes to do the housework, and while she is hoovering, Mark Frost (Troy Donohue) arrives: he is the first guest to arrive for the weekend.
Charlie "Charles" Hughes (Joseph Sirola) thinks he's a big shot, and tries to bully a gas station attendant (Emil Meola), but he's not having any of it. The attendant won't accept credit cards, calls him Jack, and then makes an obscene gesture to him. The lady who's travelling with Charles, his wife Mikki Hughes (Mary Woronov) is the one who tells him to calm down and tells him to leave.
Edmund is a writer who can't think of an ending to the story who's writing. He goes to the shore of the river and draws the dark drawing of a female face. A girl is swimming and the dog starts barking. Jason Blackstone (Timothy Ousey) goes after Aziz (Himself) the dog into the woods. Charles tries to chat up and touch Betsy (Lucy Bingham), the maid of the inn. Mikki tells Charlie to let Betsy be, as she's not his type. The girl goes inside after having rejected him and tells Nicole that she's going out with some friends of hers that very same afternoon, and Nicole, in spite of being stressed out, has to agree.
Jason tells Dad that Aziz is alone on the woods. He tells him that Aziz will be back by itself, but Edmund tells his son to stay inside while he looks around. Charles will play catch with Jason, as though the boy were a dog himself.
Nicole has dozed off in a bed while Edmund is out on the woods. She dreams of being tied up and of a mysterious masked woman with a torch threatening her. There are some knocks on the door, but nobody is there. Suddenly, an arm grabs her -- but it's only Jason with a mask. Meanwhile, Edmund is confused looking around the ominous forest. Suddenly, he notices that Aziz is hanging from a noose, dead. Mikki has a lover, and she talks to him while she is preparing himself for bed. He says he's got a surprise for her. That lover is Mark Frost. He says to Charlie that he's a disgusting person, but Charlie feels that he's got money, and that will be more than enough for Mikki. Mark tells him not to be a bad loser.
At dinner, Charlie is behaving like a bully. Outside the window, Edmund sees the face of a man which scares him. Nicole gets worried - Jason is so worried for the loss of Isis, that he's got to be put into bed by his father.
It's dark, already night. Betsy is going out, on foot, by herself. She hears like the growling of a wolf, and a man who appears out of the blue scaring her. She runs away, but the strong man, nicknamed Jackal (Henry Judd Baker) , dressed like an Indian or something like that, runs after her and catches her. Betsy says she'll do anything and the strong man touches her.
Jason has noticed that his dad is afraid of something, and Edmund says that he's scared of something inside him. Nicole is tidying it all up for the night when she notices an open door. Peering outside, she can't see anybody and closes the door. She notices a shadow of somebody moving upstairs, but Charles appears to distract her from that. She checks on Jason, who's not on his bed. He's hugging himself on a corner of the room because he's afraid of his dad. Edmund is talking to Serge Kahn (Roger De Koven) as if he were on a psychologist's office. He tells of his dreams, running around the woods in panic, about his finding of the hanging Aziz, the face outside the window, the sketches he feels a compulsion to write. Serge listens - he's a wise old man who needs a walking stick to walk.
Eunice Kahn (Anne Meacham) is looking at herself in the mirror, feeling old and sad. An incorporeal male voice tells her not to look back, and creates within her the illusion of being at a ball dancing with a handsome man. When the male voice tells her to look back, she sees a bearded man with a bone necklace and a shrill voice: he's The Spider (Hervé Villechaize). He plays a kind of ritual on her, kind of making her young again.
Nicole has finally put Jason to sleep. Mark and Charles are playing chess. They hear something strange, and Charles sees Spider as well at the other side of a window. At that moment, the Queen (Martine Beswick) is attacking Mark and she strangles him. Spider breaks the window and enters holding a knife. Charles confront him as there is nobody else to do it: nor Nicole nor Mikki will do something about it. Spider is more athletic than him and he wins. Edmund kills Mark but can't kill Spider when he realises he's one of the people in his dreams. The strongman wins over Serge.
The Queen will tell the rules and only one of them will be alive by the end of the night. Spider says that he, Queen and Jackal know all their secrets. They will have to run in a circle in a race: the last one will be executed. Gerald (Richard Cox), Nicole, Edmund, Serge and Eunice will run in that race. Serge gives a short speech about civilization: he realises he's the oldest and the weakest among them - in fact, he needs a walking stick.
Spider shows Eunice her old scarred face. She is traumatized and keeps on dreaming about herself being beautiful and dancing. She kills herself by jumping from the window. Meanwhile, the race goes on, and Charles looks like he's about to have a heart attack. At the beginning, Mikki helps him, but then she goes on on her own.
Edmund reaches their car and she pushes Nicole inside. The car won't start, so they are stuck there until Jackal appears to attack them. So they have no other option than to leave running.
Meanwhile, at the home, Jason leaves his hiding place, He sees his parents arriving from the race. Charles was the last one: Jackal puts him at the Queen's foot as if he were a sack of potatoes. Charles tries to buy his life, but the three organizers will not have it. Charles defeats Spider, but Jackal finishes him off. The Queen tells Spider off, as he was defeated. Mikki smiles when Charles is killed, but then she tries to run away in her underwear - her long nightgown is clumsy to run. A car passes her by, honks at her but won't stop. Mikki arrives to a garage, but Spider is there.
Edmund and Serge talk while they wait. The latter thinks that dreams are stereotypes, but that they do exist. Spider had read Edmund's letter. Spider takes Edmund to talk to the Queen. Jackal returns with Mikki. The Queen puts Edmund and Mikki to fight to death with knives. Edmund wins but doesn't want to kill her. The Queen is the one who finally does so. Spider walks around her dead body and says "dead, at last".
Edmund asks the Queen about his wife. She kisses him, but he rejects her. She says that few men or women have ever rejected her, and that she'll give him two hours to be with his wife. He goes to the penthouse while she is rocking herself on a chair. Nicole hugs her son and tells him to run from the three dangerous characters in the morning. They hide him in a wooden casket and leave him there. Nicole says that their marriage is over: there was always some darkness inside Edmund. She realises that everything was in Edmund's dreams before, and he invited some friends to finish them off. Nicole has given up, but he tells Edmund to protect Jason no matter what. While they are hugging, there's an image of Jackal raping Betsy.
When the dream finishes, two hours have gone by. Nicole is not with him: in the bathroom, she has cut her veins and written in the mirror I LOVED YOU. Edmund goes downstairs a broken man. Serge Kahn is still alive. Jackal is already dressed as an executioner. Serge tells Edmund not to feel any pity for him, as he's a bit tired and fed up with himself. He tears a cheque to pieces. Serge goes willingly under Jackal's axe.
The Queen tells that there are only two people alive, Edmund and a child, but there can only be one survivor. Edmund denies that there's a child, but the Queen knows because he's told her before. If he tells where Jason is, he'll perfectly happy alive. She shows Edmund how she will kill Jason - but burning him to death in the fireplace. If Edmund betrays Jason - who's telepathically aware of what's being said - he'll begin his career and his life again. Edmund thinks that the Queen can't kill the innocent, so he tells where Jason is. He takes the three invaders to the attic, betraying Jason, but the child is not there. He thinks that Nicole used her hug to tell Jason to hide him somewhere else.
Edmund runs away and falls downstairs. He kills Jackal with an axe. The Queen finds a hidden passage and there it's Jason. Spider goes after Edmund.
A white specter appears: it's Nicole, who tells the Queen to take Edmund, but not her child. The specter tells Jason to go to his room. Annoyed, the Queen says that things being so, Edmund has to be her, to which the white specter only says: "Take him!"
Dawn is close. Spider catches up with Edmund and is about to kill him. At this moment, Edmund wakes up, all sweaty and distraught; he tells Nicole that he's had the same dream again - Nicole is supposed to be that bulk under the covers by his side.
Edmund gets up and walks around his room. The sun is slowly rising. He thinks that it's over and that it was only a dream.
He goes to shave, and suddenly he finds in the mirror the I LOVED YOU written by Nicole. He goes back to the bed to wake Nicole up, but a dead-looking Queen says "Yes, my darling?" She spreads her arms and supposedly kills him.
The milkman (Timothy Rowse) arrives in the morning and leaves. Nicole picks the milk up and smiles at Jason playing around with Aziz, the dog.
Jason goes to wake Dad up, and finds a guest as the first time.
When he does so, Edmund is dead.
We hear the voice of a radio broadcast saying that writer Edmund Blackstone died of a heart attack.
---written by KrystelClaire
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