In the 1930s, a man named Gideon Fisk [David Carradine] hangs himself in the basement of his suburban mansion, a cursed book bound in human skin weighing on the house and its secrets. Fast forward to the present day, a group of four ambitious, curious female college students are hired to clean the vacant mansion over a tense weekend. The quartet—Roxanne [Madison], Terry [Suzanne Ager], Jan [Barbara Dare], and Megan [Monique Gabrielle]—arrive with a mix of bravado and nerves, and their work begins with the mundane tasks of scrubbing walls, clearing dust, and sorting through years of neglect.
In the course of tidying up, they uncover a hidden dagger tucked inside a dusty chest, a relic that seems almost out of place in the ornate but decaying estate. That very night, the cursed spirit of Gideon Fisk appears at the front door and hands them the ominous book, as if he’s passing on a legacy of danger and despair. The volume itself is a trove of grotesque sketches—monsters engaged in bizarre, and sometimes depraved, acts—that promises more than curiosity if it’s ever read aloud.
When an incantation from the book is spoken, one of the drawings erupts from its pages and becomes a living cartoon. The living cartoon, born from the Spell Book / Cartoon Monster (voiced by [Fred Olen Ray]), stalks the mansion with a predatory focus and a predilection for violence. It fixes its attention on Roxanne, seizing her form after killing her before turning to her arrival-present football-player boyfriend, Biff Bullock [Don Dowe]. The demon’s immediate aim is clear: collect the souls of everyone in the mansion so it can break free from the confines of the book, along with its demonic brethren.
The crisis escalates when the women attempt to summon help from their boss Burt Wentworth [Dick Miller], but the malevolent force is swift and ruthless. Burt is lured away and killed by the demon, leaving the four women isolated to face a threat that seems to grow stronger with every moment. As the remaining survivors realize the scope of the danger, the demon’s plan becomes more explicit: imprison the living within the book and use their bodies as vessels to release its kin.
With the mansion closing in around them, the women press on, and Megan remains the last barrier between the creature and a full, catastrophic release. The battle culminates when Gideon returns to assist Megan, guiding her hand as she stabs the demon with the ancient dagger. Before the demon can retreat back into the book, Megan hurls the book into the fireplace, incinerating it and erasing the demon from existence. Gideon explains that his curse could only be ended with a mortal’s corporeal strength to destroy the book, and with the deed done, he ascends to the afterlife.
Dawn reveals a surprising mercy: all of the demon’s victims are revived the next morning, awakening with memories that feel like fleeting nightmares. The air is still, but the experience lingers as a terrible reminder. The group’s uneasy relief is punctuated by a final, unsettling moment when neighbor Mr. Hinchlow [Arte Johnson] arrives with a portable television to share Saturday-morning cartoons with them, a strange, almost comforting return to normalcy that hides the prior terror beneath the surface.
