In a sleepy Balkan mountain village, the local police are left at a loss after seven women are killed. Interpol sends Insp. Frank Dorin, an American investigator, to untangle a string of grim events and uncover the truth behind the killings. He quickly discovers a chilling pattern: whenever the power fails, a girl dies, and afterward the bodies simply vanish. The moment he arrives, the village is plunged into another outage, even his car refuses to start, as if the town itself warns him to turn back.
The latest victim is Maria, the inn’s cook, and the atmosphere grows steadily tenser as the detective tries to blend in as a tourist. Yet the moment he steps into the inn’s dimly lit rooms, the whispers and glances of locals tell him that his presence is hardly a secret, and the chances of a straightforward inquiry grow slimmer by the hour.
As Doran digs deeper, several inhabitants emerge as potential culprits or oddities: the innkeeper who tried to force himself on Maria the night before the last murder, the enigmatic The Village Doctor who, after every post-mortem, insists on a diagnosis of heart failure despite clear bite marks around the throats, and the deaf, dumb Thomas, whose nocturnal habits raise eyebrows throughout the village. An old fortune teller mutters about vampires roaming the hills, feeding fears that the town’s legends may be more real than they appear. All the while, a sense of dread centers on an ominous grotto nearby, as if the cave itself guards a dark secret.
The village’s fear compounds around the enigmatic aristocrat Prof. von Adelsberg, a cultured but uncanny figure said to be pursuing a scientific study on blood within his forbidding castle. At his side is the young, striking assistant Karin Schumann, whose presence adds to the air of danger and fascination that surrounds the man. It doesn’t take long for the investigator to connect the dots: Adelsberg is the feared vampire behind the deaths. As Doran begins to understand the depth of Karin’s peril, he finds himself drawn to her, and the two form a fragile, cautious bond in the face of a lurking threat.
With Karin’s safety weighing on him, they enlist the aid of Adelsberg’s black servant, John. Together they unearth the vampire’s coffin in a stalactite cave beneath the castle, where the seven murdered women have been kept in a docile, undead state. The moment the creature stirs, a struggle ensues, and Doran acts decisively, driving a wooden stake into the vampire’s heart. The castle’s dark machinery collapses as Adelsberg’s decomposing body bursts into flames in a small, gripping explosion, bringing a shocking end to the terror that held the village in its grip.
