One Dark Night

The police uncover the bodies of six young girls in the apartment of the famed Russian occultist Karl Raymarseivich Raymar, and the scene leaves investigators perplexed by the stranger violence and anonymity of the crime. When coroners lift Raymar’s body onto a stretcher, bolts of electricity surge from his fingers, hinting at powers far beyond a conventional killer. His estranged daughter, Olivia McKenna, and her husband Allan McKenna are blindsided by the news until they encounter Samuel Dockstader, a feature writer for The World of the Occult. As a friend of Raymar, Dockstader explains that Raymar was a psychic vampire who abducted young girls to drain their life energy, or bioenergy, and he fears the death toll will rise if Raymar’s legacy continues. Dockstader’s evidence includes a chilling set of photographs and an audiotape that outline his unsettling discoveries, which finally convinces Olivia to take his warnings seriously and believe that something extraordinary—perhaps dangerous—has awakened.

Meanwhile, a high school girl named Julie Wells longs to join a club called The Sisters, a trio of snobby classmates: Carol Mason, Leslie Winslow, and Kitty. The dynamics are fraught from the start, as Carol is the ex-girlfriend of Julie’s new boyfriend, Steve Breaker, and she resents the possibility of Julie’s inclusion. In a bid to exact petty revenge, Carol and Kitty scheme to scare Julie by sending her to spend a night alone in a mausoleum, not realizing that Raymar’s body was entombed there mere moments earlier. That evening, Julie is dropped off by Carol and Kitty, while Leslie stays away. The mausoleum becomes a stage for fear as Julie settles in, unaware of the cracks creeping along Raymar’s vault.

As a prank escalates, Carol and Kitty sneak back inside in ghoulish costumes, hoping to frighten Julie. Julie locks herself inside the chapel, but Raymar stirs from his tomb, slowly reawakening with a frightening display of power: the walls tremble, windows shatter, and doors slam shut. Raymar’s influence extends to the coffins inside, which pop open to reveal rotting cadavers that levitate and gather around the frightened girls, crowding them into a suffocating, deadly grasp. The suspense heightens as the trio outside realizes something terrible is unfolding, and the clock ticks toward a desperate confrontation.

Back at Julie’s home, Steve goes in search of Julie and encounters Leslie, who reluctantly reveals Julie’s initiation into The Sisters. Steve hurries to the mausoleum in a rush of anger and concern, while Olivia also races toward the site, driven by the fear that her father’s abilities might be more than a rumor and that she herself could possess similar powers. The mausoleum becomes a battleground between the living and the reanimated dead, with Raymar controlling the corpses and seizing the surrounding corridors to trap Julie and Steve inside.

When Steve bursts into the mausoleum, he finds Julie in a perilous grip of the encroaching, undead bodies. The cadavers press closer, overpowering him as he fights to cut a path to safety. Olivia arrives in the nick of time, bringing aid and a glimmer of hope. In a decisive moment, she uses her compact to reflect the lethal energy Raymar directs from his eyes, turning his own power back on him. The beam disintegrates Raymar and the surrounding carcasses, freeing Julie and Steve from immediate danger.

With the immediate threat ended, the three survivors—Julie, Steve, and Olivia—begin to leave the mausoleum, each bearing the marks of the night’s terror. Julie’s trauma lingers as they step into the dim light, looking toward an uncertain future but grateful to be alive. The final image is haunting and surreal: near the mound of forgotten corpses inside the empty mausoleum lies Kitty’s toothbrush, a strange keepsake she carried, before a fresh corpse suddenly falls and emits a chilling scream, leaving the audience with a lingering sense of unease and the suggestion that the danger Raymar introduced may not be entirely vanquished.

Last Updated: October 09, 2025 at 14:28