In rural Pennsylvania, siblings Barbra and Johnny visit their father’s grave on a quiet, overcast day. A pale man in a tattered suit steps into the cemetery and launches a brutal assault, killing Johnny and gravely attacking Barbra. She escapes to a nearby farmhouse, only to discover the resident’s corpse lying half-eaten on the stairs as a growing horde of ghouls closes in around them. A stranger named Ben arrives, initially mistaking Barbra for the homeowner, and quickly shuts the windows and doors to hold back the encroaching threat. As he and Barbra settle in, Ben finds a lever-action rifle while Barbra, shaken and nearly catatonic, remains in the house.
Inside the home, Barbra discovers that a small group has already taken shelter in a cellar: Harry, his wife Helen, and their young daughter Karen. They are joined by another couple, Tom and Judy, who arrive after hearing an emergency broadcast about brutal killings spreading across the East Coast. With the ghoul threat growing, the refugees listen to radio and television reports that detail a nation under siege by canibalistic corpses and armed patrols trying to eradicate the problem. Scientists speculate that radiation from a space probe returning from Venus may have triggered the reanimations, while authorities explain that the ghouls can be stopped by a heavy blow to the head, a firearm to the brain, or fire. As a plan forms to move the group to safety, Ben suggests a risky run to a fuel pump on the farm to stock up supplies and then head toward a rescue center.
A trio—Ben, Tom, and Judy—drive out to refuel, keeping the ghouls at bay with torches and Molotov cocktails. But disaster strikes when fuel spills, ignite the truck, and it explodes, killing Tom and Judy. Ben returns to the house and forcibly takes control when Harry refuses to let him in, heightening tensions among the survivors. The group weighs their options as night deepens and the power falters. They pause to follow a 3 a.m. news update, then the lights go out, and the ghoul siege intensifies, forcing them to improvise under pressure.
As the ghoul assault intensifies, Harry is disarmed and shot by Ben after grabbing his gun, and he staggers down to the cellar, dying alongside Helen. Karen dies from her injuries, then becomes a ghoul herself, wandering back to her father’s remains and consuming them. Karen also fatally attacks her mother with a masonry trowel, a grim turn of events that underscores the collapse of the group’s fragile bonds. Barbra tries to help Ben seal the house, but a reanimated Johnny suddenly reappears and drags Barbra away, pulling her into the chaos outside.
With the horde breaking through the doors and windows, Ben seeks shelter in the cellar, where he defends the space by shooting at the approaching ghouls. Just as dawn arrives, an armed posse storms the property, intent on dispatching the remaining monsters. The commotion and gunfire alert the rescuers, who shoot Ben—mistaking him for a ghoul—and his body is later burned on a bonfire along with the other corpses, marking a tragic and devastating end to a night of escalating horror.
The farmhouse becomes a ground zero for a rapid collapse of safety and humanity, a stark reminder of how quickly shelter can become a tomb when a mysterious force reanimates the dead and an entire region is overwhelmed by fear, desperation, and loss.
