Every year, Auntie Roo, the warm-hearted host known as Rosie Forrest, throws a lavish overnight Christmas party for ten of the best-mannered orphans at the local orphanage. Her inviting smile hides a devastating truth: she is demented and mentally ill, and she keeps the mummified remains of her daughter Katharine in a nursery room up in the attic. The festive atmosphere is a carefully crafted veneer, a stage for her most unsettling ritual: regular séances intended to communicate with Katharine’s spirit.
The sessions are run by a phony medium, Mr. Benton, who profits from the pretense by sharing his fees with the household butler, Albie. The deception is aided by Clarine, the maid who quietly calls down the dumbwaiter shaft in a childlike voice, pretending to be the deceased Katharine. This trio operates behind the scenes, weaving fear and fantasy into the party’s glow, and they manage to keep their con going by exploiting the vulnerable need for wonder among the children.
Into this fragile world drift Christopher Coombs Christopher Coombs and his sister Katy Coombs Katy Coombs, two orphans who slip into the evening’s festivities. Auntie Roo greets them with a generosity that feels almost suspiciously warm, particularly toward Katy, whom she instantly sees as a perfect stand-in for her late daughter. Christopher, sharp and wary, senses danger in the air and voices his suspicions, but his warnings fall on deaf ears as the party goes on. When the celebratory night ends, Auntie Roo secretly abducts Katy, intending to make the child a substitute for Katharine and perhaps to fashion a new, private family from fear and control.
As Christopher grasps the peril, he fights to protect his sister and to rescue Katy from the mansion’s clutches. With the pair on the run, Auntie Roo begins preparing a New Year’s Eve dinner, while Christopher helps by gathering firewood. In a moment of daring, Christopher steals the key to the nursery, and he frees Katy from the room where Katharine’s mummy lies. The siblings attempt to escape through the basement kitchen door, but Auntie Roo locks them in the pantry. The chase intensifies as Auntie Roo returns to the nursery to confront Katharine’s corpse, trying to remove the mummy from its coffin—only to have the skull crumble to dust in her hands.
Traumatized and losing the last shreds of her grip on reality, Auntie Roo returns to the kitchen and resumes the task of preparing the meal she had planned for the future. Christopher, listening, instructs Katy to call out to Auntie Roo in the same way Clarine did during the séance, hoping to lure the madwoman away from the pantry. The plan works enough for Christopher to push a cascade of cans onto the floor, trapping Auntie Roo and pinning her down. The children seize the moment, wheel open the pantry door, and push firewood against it, dousing it with paraffin and setting it alight.
In the chaos, they recover the jewelry stuffed inside Katharine’s old teddy bear—the “ wicked witch’s treasure”—and race toward escape once more. Outside, the orphans encounter the piglet being delivered by horsecart, a sight that underscores the surreal, wild misfortune of Auntie Roo’s world. The fire brigade arrives too late to save the motherly destroyer of their security, and Inspector Willoughby Inspector Willoughby leads the children back to the safety of the orphanage.
As they depart the burning mansion, Christopher and Katy share a quiet, knowing smile. They have survived Auntie Roo’s nightmare, and they carry with them the tantalizing possibility of a happier ending, one built on the “wicked witch’s treasure” and the sense that they can shape their own future despite the odds. The film closes on their relieved faces, a testament to resilience in the face of manipulation and terror, as they move toward a hopeful, if uncertain, New Year.
