In New York City, Ruth Rogen sits on death row for murdering three of her former lovers, a string of crimes that has blackened her reputation and unsettled those who once knew her. Her fourth lover, a charlatan psychic named Paul Bavian, betrayed her to the police, sealing her fate. Dr. Carl Houston presents a chilling hypothesis: the malignant spirit of an executed murderer could drift beyond the grave to fuel new crimes, and he secures permission to experiment on Ruth’s body after she is executed by the electric chair. The science is unsettling, the stakes are uncanny, and the room hums with electric possibility as the experiment begins.
Meanwhile, heiress Roma Courtney becomes entangled with Bavian, who claims that her recently deceased twin brother, John, wants to send her a message from the other side. To complicate matters, Bavian’s landlady, Madame Gourjan, threatens to expose him, and he promptly murders her with a ring that carries a poisoned needle. Roma and her fiancé, Grant Wilson, attend a séance conducted by Bavian, hoping for a hint from beyond the grave. The séance atmosphere crackles with stagecraft and superstition, but Bavian’s persona begins to crumble as the couple is drawn into his manipulation. He deftly convinces Roma that her brother’s murder was committed by Nicky Hammond, the businesslike manager of the Courtney estate, a claim that unsettles Roma and plants doubt in her heart.
After the unsettling session, Roma and Grant seek answers in Dr. Houston’s laboratory, where the air is thick with coppery smell and crackling energy. Houston is preoccupied with his audacious plan to reanimate Ruth Rogen’s body by flooding it with electricity, a process that would blur the lines between life and death. When Ruth’s eyes finally open, the stunned visitors are shooed from the room, but the night has already turned conspiratorial. A sudden wind bursts through the lab, and Ruth’s spirit makes a faint, unsettling attempt to enter Roma’s body, leaving delicate fingerprints on Roma’s neck as a chilling reminder that something otherworldly has occurred.
To test Bavian’s supposed fraudulence, Grant agrees to a second séance at Roma’s home. Once again Bavian resorts to tricks to cast doubt on Roma, insisting that Hammond is a killer. A tense encounter follows—Hammond confronts Bavian, and Bavian uses his ring to kill Hammond. At that moment, Ruth’s spirit slips fully into Roma, and the possessed Roma agrees to depart with Bavian. They retreat to Roma’s former apartment, where Bavian is blind to the truth of the possession and reveals a raw arrogance—he derides Ruth even as he pursues Roma more passionately.
When the landlord orders them to leave, Bavian suggests they move the scene to Roma’s yacht, a floating stage where desire, danger, and power intersect beneath the stars. Grant, meanwhile, is not idle; aided by Ghost of John Courtney, he senses the truth of Roma’s possession and races toward the yacht to intervene. On board, the afterglow heightens the tension as Bavian and Roma exchange intimate words, while Roma’s mannerisms begin to mirror Ruth’s. Bavian’s unease grows, his confidence cracking as he realizes the danger he’s courting—a danger that could ruin him.
Grant arrives just in time to interrupt Ruth-in-Roma from strangling Bavian and to protect Roma from a lethal turn. Exposed and cornered, Bavian attempts to flee, but Ruth’s spirit pursues him, winding a rope around his neck and hanging him as the sea wind howls. With Bavian defeated by the supernatural force he sought to weaponize, Ruth’s spirit departs, leaving Roma free but forever changed. In the quiet that follows, John Courtney’s ghost nudges the couple toward a shared future, hinting that their bond—tested by darkness and doubt—might deserve a hopeful, earthly consummation: marriage.
