Nora Mae Edwards, Elizabeth Mannino, a former New York City prostitute who struggles with a sleep disorder, works the graveyard shift as a waitress in a quiet upstate New York town. One night, she meets John Henry Cox, David Gregory, a mysterious man who asks her to marry him. Nora impulsively accepts, resigning from the diner and moving with him to the small town of Newbury, where John works as a mortician. The couple marry that very night, a ceremony attended by several pillars of the Newbury community, sealing a union that feels almost surreal in its haste and secrecy.
Nora finds herself at odds with John’s lifestyle and the home that seems to inhabit itself of modern conveniences. The house is free of television, clocks are conspicuously absent, and the atmosphere grows increasingly isolated as she tries to settle in. The town’s secrets broaden when a young woman dies in a mysterious drowning accident, and her brother Evan Matthews, Jerry Rector, arrives at the funeral home to identify the body. Before Evan arrives, two of the Newbury ambulance drivers engage in disturbing acts with the deceased, a detail that gnaws at Nora’s sense of reality. When Evan does come, Nora is drawn into a tense confrontation with the town’s oddities, and the eerie scene escalates as Nora secretly witnesses John and others applying electric currents to the dead woman’s body, after which John declares the woman “safe” and insists the townspeople will not be able to contract AIDS.
After the funeral, Evan voices suspicions that something is terribly wrong in Newbury and urges Nora to avoid water and to question what she has seen. Nora wavers, unsure whether the terrifying events are nightmares or something more sinister. To calm her nerves, John offers a warm bath, and Nora reluctantly accepts despite Evan’s warnings. The unsettling moment deepens when John attempts to drown Laura, then retracts, claiming he merely slipped and pushed her. That night, Evan returns, and Nora leaves with him while John sleeps.
The two head to the cemetery, where Evan shows Nora headstones of John’s previous wives, a chilling pattern that hints at a long, murderous history. They break into the crypt of Evan’s sister and discover it empty, a shocking sign that John and certain townspeople may be grave robbers. As night falls, several townspeople and two ambulance drivers reappear in a zombie-like state and converge on the cemetery. Evan decapitates Morley, the Chauffeur, with a shovel, and Nora stumbles upon a tombstone bearing her own name before she manages to escape.
The next morning, Nora is startled to find Morley seemingly alive again. She awakens from what may be a nightmare in which John killed her in the embalming room, and she wonders whether the preceding events actually happened. To reassure her, John takes Nora to see Sheriff Porter, who tells her Evan is alive. Nora flees through the town, but the locals offer little help, and she ends up dialing her former boss Donna for help, agreeing to meet at the funeral home.
Nora is pursued by John through the funeral home and escapes in a hearse, striking Morley and sending him tumbling from the vehicle. On a lonely country road, Morley reappears, riding a motorcycle as his body disintegrates into a corpse-like state before crashing. Soon enough, Nora discovers Evan alive and waiting in a coffin inside the back of the hearse. The chase leads them toward a roadblock guarded by Sheriff Porter, and Evan reveals himself to be among the undead. John, now in disguise as Donna, and Morley together with Evan close in on Nora, dragging her back to the funeral home.
In a twist that blurs dream and reality, Nora wakes up back at the diner, realizing the entire sequence may have been a nightmare. Yet when John and Morley enter the diner, Nora springs into action and shoots both men. The aftermath suggests a grim verdict: Nora’s self-defense claim may hold, while John and Morley survive the encounter and continue to operate the funeral home, with Evan working as their new employee, leaving the town’s dark pact intact and the eerie undead undercurrents unresolved.
