In the New England town of New Gilead in the late 19th century, a scheming funeral parlor life lies at the heart of a grim tale. Waldo Trumbull, Vincent Price, is an unscrupulous drunkard who has taken over the business from his former partner, Amos Hinchley Boris Karloff. Trumbull’s marriage to Hinchley’s daughter, Amaryllis Joyce Jameson, is strained and unhappy, fed by loud arguments and threats. To shore up his operation, Trumbull hires a former fugitive, the cunning picklock Felix Gillie Peter Lorre, as his unreliable assistant. Together they run a sham operation that proudly tows the line between respectability and murder, reusing the firm’s sole coffin to save money while quietly killing wealthy residents to up the funeral business.
The façade of success begins to crumble as Trumbull grows abusive toward Amaryllis and schemes to hasten an inheritance by poisoning her senile father, deceitfully telling him the medicine is something beneficial. Gillie, who is secretly in love with Amaryllis, makes clumsy passes at her in a bid for her affection, but she remains loyal to Waldo, who spends more on alcohol than on keeping the business afloat. As Trumbull’s greed gnaws away at the practice, the rent piles up and eviction threats loom, delivered by his landlord John F. Black Basil Rathbone. In a bid to placate debt collectors and secure continued business, Trumbull murders a wealthy shipping magnate and arranges for funeral services for the heirs, yet the magnate’s widow soon disappears with her husband’s fortune, leaving Trumbull poorer and more desperate than before.
After one last demand for payment, Trumbull dispatches Gillie to eliminate Black. The would-be assassin flees when Black awakens, swinging a sword and reciting Shakespeare as if in a fever dream; the act leaves Black momentarily dead from a heart attack, and a physician, Douglas Williams, pronounces him dead despite a servant’s warning that Black has suffered periods of death-like sleep before. Trumbull and Gillie haul Black to the mortuary, where a crucial twist unfolds: Amaryllis’ cat Cleopatra Orangey the Cat awakens Black, preventing him from escaping, and he suffers another heart attack. When Black finally revives, Trumbull knocks him unconscious and the funeral proceeds with the family none the wiser—Black is placed in his own crypt as if he never stirred.
That night, Trumbull revels in his supposed profits, counting the fruit of his murderous scheme while Gillie makes a second, crude bid for Amaryllis’s affection. She resists him, but then decides to run away with Gillie, leaving Waldo to plot anew. Fate, however, has other plans: Black awakens, breaks free from the tomb, and stalks into the parlor brandishing an axe. Amaryllis faints, and a chaotic chase ensues around the house. Gillie slips and tumbles down a flight of stairs, losing consciousness, while Waldo shoots Black. The final Shakespearean monologue comes from Black as he dies, a grim reminder of the world’s fickle justice.
Amaryllis regains consciousness and suspects Gillie has died at Waldo’s hand; she threatens to call the police, prompting Waldo to strangle her in a last, desperate attempt to protect his lie. Gillie awakens and, convinced that Waldo has murdered Amaryllis, turns on Waldo with a sword. A brutal struggle ends with Waldo striking Gillie down with a poker, while Black’s loyal servant Luree Holmes arrives, witnesses the carnage, and calls the authorities. Exhausted and defeated, Waldo collapses as Amaryllis and Gillie, battered but alive, revive and flee together.
In the aftermath, Hinchley—who had slept through most of the night—drinks from a vial he mislabels as a cure and watches Waldo slip away into death, realizing too late that he has consumed his own poison. The final odd note comes as Cleopatra—the cat—approaches Black, who suffers an allergic reaction to her presence, a macabre, almost cruelly comic coda to a night of lethal ambition.
