An eerie, fate-steeped tale begins when an old woman, Mrs. Malatesta, Irma St. Paule, uses an artificial hand with a quill as a planchette to reach the afterlife. Jennifer, Caroline Capers Powers, moves into Mrs. Malatesta's apartment with her husband Ray, Roger Neill. The property manager, Pappas, Chris Maria De Koron, insists the old woman disappeared without a trace, casting a shadow over the place and its odd belongings. The moment Jennifer dives into the apartment’s history, she uncovers a box that hides the strange hand, setting off a chain of discoveries that will blur the line between the living and the dead.
As Jennifer settles in, a menacing sequence unfolds outside the quiet routine of daily life. A corpulent stranger escorts a prostitute to a room and kills her, only to be revealed later as a woman named Farkas, a chilling figure connected to the house’s haunting aura. Farkas, Pam La Testa, becomes a recurring presence in the story, a glyph of danger that looms over Jennifer’s investigations and the box’s unsettling power.
The tension spikes at a Christmas party hosted by Jennifer and Ray, where the planchette is treated as a party gag. The device suddenly begins to write messages on its own, starting with the urgent word “Help me.” It then spells out the name William Graham and a phone number, pulling Jennifer into a web of secrets. When she shares the bizarre message with her friend Cindy, Stacey Graves calls the number and learns that William Graham had died by suicide three weeks earlier, a fact that only deepens the mystery and hints at foul play.
Jennifer’s fear turns into a fierce obsession as the planchette continues to operate on its own. She tosses the box into a wastebasket, hoping to end the strange occurrences, but Ray, doubting Jennifer’s grip on reality, wants to discard the disturbing artifact as well. In a tense moment of coincidence, Pappas reappears and takes the box from them, pulling them further into a dangerous, unknown force. The box, when disturbed, releases a malevolent presence that attacks Pappas and convinces him to see monstrous figures scattered across his body, driving him to stabbing himself to death in a grisly frenzy.
The mystery thickens when Ray learns that Graham was found suffocated in his car at a warehouse, a detail that implies murder rather than suicide. Jennifer retrieves the planchette and uses it as a conduit to seek the truth, discovering that William Graham did not take his own life, but was murdered by Farkas and an accomplice. She heads to see Dorothy Graham, Graham’s widow, to share these findings and press for answers. Dorothy Graham, Victoria Dryden, is introduced as a grieving figure whose past becomes entangled with the planchette’s inquiries. Mr. Graham, the deceased’s husband, is represented in the cast by James Styles, a detail that ties the living to the dead through a single lineage of pain and suspicion.
The tension explodes at a New Year’s Eve party when Farkas, disguised as a waitress, closes in on Jennifer. Jennifer fights back, and the planchette reveals that Farkas is the predatory killer behind the murders. Cindy, still skeptical of Jennifer’s visions, brings a psychiatrist to the scene, but the planchette’s dark power eliminates the psychiatrist before the truth can be calmly explained. As Jennifer wanders after dark, Farkas attempts to end her life by driving into her, but Jennifer escapes and seeks aid at a museum, where she pleads for help from a security guard. In the chaos, Ray is killed by the box’s force, a grim reminder that the artifact’s power is indiscriminate and deadly.
Jennifer is eventually taken to a psychiatric institution, where Farkas’ accomplice, disguised as a doctor, attempts to finish the job. The planchette’s otherworldly reach proves too strong, enabling Jennifer to escape once more. A dramatic reunion with Dorothy appears to offer shelter, but Doroty’s alliance with Farkas becomes clear as they drive toward the warehouse where Graham was killed. Inside, Farkas closes in with an ax, but William Graham’s reanimated corpse rises to kill Farkas, granting Jennifer a narrow window to flee. Mrs. Graham, discovering Farkas’ body, barricades herself in her husband’s car, only for Graham’s zombie to gas her to death in the car, sealing the tragedy’s terminal twist.
In the film’s final, fateful image, Jennifer sits alone in front of the planchette once more, suggesting that she has, in effect, stepped into Mrs. Malatesta’s role and taken on the burden of the house’s restless dead. The eerie ritual of contact with the beyond has rewritten her future, casting a long shadow over the apartment and confirming that this is a story where the living and the supernatural collide, leaving a permanent mark on all who touch the hand with the quill.
