Dark Sanity

After being released from the hospital, Karen and her husband Alan relocate from San Diego to a house in the Los Angeles hills. Karen's persistent visions begin to intrude on their fresh start, hinting at a possible psychic origin. The new setting triggers a sense of unease as she adjusts to the empty rooms and shadows.

Karen meets Madge Harper, her talkative neighbor across the street, and Benny, the developmentally-disabled landscaper who keeps the yards tidy. The social connection brings new echoes of the town’s secrets into Karen’s life, while her visions continue to haunt her. This early interaction marks the start of a tense neighborhood dynamic.

Alan invites his boss and his wife to dinner, and the evening is punctuated by Karen's disturbing visions of a severed hand in her bedroom and a cloaked figure on the staircase. The visions unsettle Karen and foreshadow the danger tied to the house. She tries to maintain normalcy, but the psychological pressure mounts.

Karen attends an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting to seek stability, but the visions persist and push her toward relapse. She temporarily exits the scene, overwhelmed by the house's past and her own fragility. The episode underscores the fragility of her sobriety and mental state.

In a bar, Karen nearly relapses until Larry Craig, a retired police sergeant who once investigated the brutal axe murder at the house, intervenes and grounds her. He recounts how Lucy Duncan, the murder victim, looked like Karen, and how the severed head was never found. The revelation ties Karen's present fears to the house's deadly history.

Larry escorts Karen back to her house and explains that Lucy’s head had not been located and that unsettling phenomena accompanied the case. Karen shares the story with Alan, who dismisses Larry as a con artist and questions Karen's reliability. The tension between Karen's experiences and Alan's skepticism deepens.

Karen questions Madge about the Lucy Duncan murder, and Madge insinuates that Larry was having an affair with her and became obsessed with the case after Lucy’s death. She implies Larry's obsessive behavior led to his firing and his status as a suspect. The rumor mill adds personal danger to the house's haunting.

Lucy Duncan's beloved cat leads Karen into the crawlspace, where they discover Lucy's severed head hidden beneath a crawlspace entry in a closet. The discovery confirms a gruesome link between Karen's home and the unresolved murder. The emotional shock compounds Karen's fear.

Karen accompanies Larry to a psychiatric hospital to visit Lucy Duncan's son, Edward. In a private moment, Larry admits that Edward may be his biological son, adding a personal twist to the house's history. The revelation deepens the psychological stakes for both characters.

The next day, Alan returns home drunk after being fired, attacks Karen, and questions her whereabouts. Madge approaches Karen outside, but Karen rebuffs her, and inside, Karen drinks from Alan's whiskey bottle, signaling a full relapse of her deteriorating state.

The following day, Larry confronts Benny in a bar about Lucy's murder, and a psychic vision strikes Larry, signaling a growing premonition. He rushes to Karen's house, where Karen, now also overwhelmed by visions, senses a cloaked figure breaking in.

Inside the house, Madge murders Lucy's cat and attacks Karen. A cloaked, axe-wielding intruder pursues them, and Larry arrives to help, causing Madge to fall from a window and be seriously injured.

In the hospital, a psychiatrist explains that Madge murdered Lucy and attempted to kill Karen due to irrational fears about her husband's fidelity toward neighborhood women. In the end, Karen sits in a straight jacket and laughs maniacally, signaling her own descent into madness.