Sir Edward Markham is a disfigured man living in 1865 England, kept sequestered in his room by his guilt-ridden brother, Sir Julian. After years of confinement, Edward’s bitterness grows into a daring plan to escape by faking his own death. He is not alone in this scheming; he enlists the help of the family lawyer, Samuel Trench, and a mysterious witchdoctor, N'Galo, who together concoct a drug that could plunge Edward into a deathlike trance. The attempted ruse is interrupted when Julian discovers his "dead" brother and places him in a coffin, certain that the ruse has collapsed. In a rare moment of pity or revulsion, Julian asks Trench to provide a proxy body for the lying-in-state ceremony, but Trench and N'Galo step in differently: they murder the landlord Hackett and offer his corpse to Julian instead. After the wake, Trench and his young ally, Joshua Kemp, dispose of Hackett’s body in a river, and Julian loses no time in burying the supposed victim. With his brother supposedly out of the way, Julian is free to pursue a new life and marries his young fiancée, Lady Elizabeth Markham.
The plot thickens when the real Edward is exhumed by grave robbers and delivered to Dr. Neuhartt. Neuhartt opens the coffin to confront the resurrected Edward, and the former misdeed becomes leverage: Edward uses his exact knowledge of Neuhartt’s illicit activities to coerce shelter. As Edward’s suspicions grow that his associates betrayed him, he conceals his face behind a crimson hood and launches a relentless vendetta in search of the witchdoctor, determined to avenge the wrongs done to him. In this murderous spree, Norton is promptly targeted and his throat is slit when he hesitates to reveal the witchdoctor’s whereabouts. Between killings, Edward flirts with Neuhartt’s maid, Sally, and their illicit affair further complicates the allegiances around them. Neuhartt reacts by firing Sally, who then goes to work for Julian, widening the rift between the brothers and those who serve them.
Meanwhile, Trench’s pursuit of the truth leads him to the tavern, where a couple of drunks and a prostitute, including Heidi, disrupt his search for the witchdoctor. The ongoing police investigation intensifies the hunt for a killer wearing a crimson hood, and Julian grows increasingly wary as Kemp’s suspicions about the body’s authenticity surface. Trench eventually reveals the truth about Edward’s “death,” a revelation that venomously reorients the balance of power, and Trench himself is soon dispatched, though not before he points Edward toward the missing N'Galo. Edward seeks the wretched witchdoctor to cure his deformity, but the cure proves illusory; the two men clash, and Neuhartt is eventually slain when Edward slits his throat, fleeing to confront his brother once more.
Back at the Markham ancestral home, Julian learns the whereabouts of his brother from Sally and heads to Neuhartt’s residence, only to find him near death. Sally, now disenchanted by the carnage and the man she once loved, is left to confront the grim truth of Edward’s return. The confrontation in the woods between Julian and Edward ends when Julian shoots the crimson-hooded killer with both barrels, though Edward bites Julian’s hand in a last, defiant moment. Edward is briefly reburied in a coffin, only to be resurrected once more by a vengeful N'Galo, yet this time he remains buried—six feet under with no escape. In the final twist, Elizabeth discovers Julian in Edward’s old room, and when asked what he is doing there, Julian reveals a disfigured truth of his own: his face bears Edward’s curse, a consequence of the bite, and Elizabeth recoils in fear as the truth sinks in.
