Plot summary

Howard P. Lovecraft (Jeffrey Combs) is the narrator who says that he found out that the Necronomicon book was located somewhere in America, guarded by some monks. He wanted to find it to use it for his writings. In there book, the secrets to the universe, past, present and future.Lovecraft goes to a mysterious library because he wants to fact-check his writings, as he alleges he presents possibilities and not fiction in his writing. The attendant (Juan Fernández) gives him the 3rd volume of an alchemy enclyclopaedia, and reminds him that, if he tries to steal anything, his priviledges will be revoked. He uses the librarian keys to open the vault. There is a safe in that room. The door closes by itself and the safebox, which has no key, opens by itself as well. Inside, there it is: the Necronomicon , also called The Book of Death , which turns itself off when Lovecraft touches it. On Lovecraft carrying away, we can see something opening up. The letter Y written in the Gothic style appears. There is a kind of ominous resounding which startles the librarian (Tony Azito) and the two attendants. In his humble notebook, Lovecraft starts writing:Story 1: The Drowned Edward De Lapoer (Bruce Payne) has returned to America by ship to inherit his family's estate. The young female lawyer Nancy Gallmore (Belinda Bauer) took on his case from his late father with the rest of the practice. There was a problem with the writing and pronunciation of Edward's surname, until she finally found him in Sweden.They enter the hotel, now almost derelict since Uncle Jethro (Richard Lynch) used to manage it sixty years ago. She advises him to sell it as soon as possible, because there are underground rivers which create caves which will make the hotel cramble down in the non-too-distant future. The wooden planks on the floor keep on breaking under them. Once, she falls down to Edward's arms, and once, Edward falls down the stairs, also causing a sicle fall close to a well or pond beneath. Nancy makes a comment about the hotel not liking Edward, because when she had seen it before, with her assistant Kevin, they didn't have any problem at all.Once on the first floor in the bedroom, Edward focuses on the portrait of beautiful aunt Emma (Denice D. Lewis), who was mysteriously dead and, some days later, was the probable cause of uncle Jethro's death , who was found below the balcony, which overlooks the beach. Edwards goes to the balcony and look to the sea landscape. He can't avoid remembering his own past. He was driving with Clara (Maria Ford). The car falls to the water because he gets distracted. He survives and she dies. The forensics doctor (William Jess Russell) treats her corpse brutally.Nancy gives Edward a document which Jethro left with the will. She advises him to make the place happier, or sell it quickly, because of its bad reputation.A storm breaks out and Edward sets on the fire. Jethro wrote that he committed suicide. He was travelling by ship with Emma and Yon (Peter Jasienski), their son. There is a shipwreck and he survives. He wakes up to attend them at the funeral. Distraught, he throws the bible to the fire and tells to all attendants that god is not welcome to his home again. He caresses the dead corpse of Emma. When he wakes up, a kind of monstruous alligator dressed with seaweed enters the foyer and tells him to open the book only when he's on his own. Jethro tells him to wait for him, but it's too late; it's gone. The book is full of electricity. Jethro follows the instructions of an incantation to mend the untimely loss. The incantation is to Cthultu, and says that death is only sleep. He uses his own blood, which falls down. Yon and Emma immediately wake up. Yon and Emma become octopussy-monsters with glittering eyes. Jethro, before commutting suicide, says that his beloved are now watching the book.Edward moves the table to see the area where the incantation was performed. The magical circle is still drawn on the floor. He looks for the Necronomicon with fury. A tentacle gives him the idea of looking behind Emma's portrait. Behind it, there lies the Necronomicon . Clara arrives in the morning, whispering "Eddie". She asks him to let her in. He cries because the car accident was his fault. Clara tries to make love to him. She says she's tired of making bubbles, and tries to suck his blood with her octopus tentacles. He cuts her with a sword and Clara becomes a huge tentacled monster below the ground. Edward jumps to the lamp to kill the monster. Edward leaves through the ceiling, and looks to the sunny day in the sea.Cut to Lovecraft, who sees a monster below the room where he's in. One of the assistants wonder whether he'll be so stupid as to try it, and the other says that he'll, because he's only human. The room is getting colder and colder,Story 2: The Cold In the planet of Lost, there is a heat wave, and only a man is calm and cool about it, but this man is imprisoned by his own devices.Dale Porkel (Dennis Christopher), a reporter from the Boston Journal, calls on Amy Osterman to talk about 11 corpses which have been appearing around the neighbourhood for 40 years. It's freezing inside, but Amy says that she's got an illness which makes sunlight and heat harmful to her. Amy's mother prepares tea.Dale talks about Dr. Richard Madden (David Warner), who may be alive after 80 years. Dale tells her to talk to him or the cops. Amy's mother arrived to London to study the flute.Emily Osterman (Bess Meyer) arrives to Boston in a yellow cab, rents a room to Lena Kamen (Millie Perkins), who lives with Dr. Madden. He never leaves his room on the third floor. A chain-smoking man watches the house from his car. Emily is having a shower, but feels something strange. There is water spilling, and Sam (Gary Graham), threatens her because he loves her. He tries to rape her, so she runs upstairs to the third floor. Dr Madden stabs Sam in his hand. Lena looks at Sam Linder, who has stumbled down the stairs.Dr. Madden bandages Emily's head. She says that Sam was her stepfather. Dr. Madden says that the frigid temperatures are because of a skin condition he has. Emily wonders at the ammonium leaking down to her room, and Dr. Madden says that it was a mistake of his. He prescribes some pills to her.That night, Emily looks at blood spilling down to her room. She goes up and sees Dr. Madden and Lena performaning some strange surgery on Sam. Emily passes out.She wakes up in a blooded bed and they convince her she had a dream. Dr. Madden cuts a finger: he's got not blood, but a pinkish liquid. Emily gets a job at Al's, a restaurant nearby. Mr Hawkins (Curt Lowens) will give her a job is she gets a good tip from two cops (Sebastian White & James Paradise), who are looking for Sam Linder.Emily runs to bang on Dr. Madden's door. He admits that his research has led him to poverty. Emily wants to leave. Dr. Madden feels sick because it's warmer downstairs. She is not annoyed about him hurting Sam - he was dead anyway -, but about him lying to her. Emily covers him in a bath of ice because Lena has gone out. She gives her hand to him.He explains about the Necronomicon. There is a virus which dies and can be revived with water, and it helps to stop growing old. Dr. Madden doesn't love Lena, although she seems to love him. He injects a serum to a rose, which immediately becomes a bud again. It'll never die, says Dr. Madden, and it's become cold.Lena sees Dr. Madden and Emily making love in the conservatory. Lena appears with a knife, and tells her that she must be prepared to kill or be killed for him. Emily runs away.Back to Amy, who says that Emily left Dr. Madden, but she was pregnant, so she had to go back to him. Lena and Dr. Madden are trying to kill Al. Lena wants to kill Emily. Richard tells her not to do it. A fire starts, burning Richard's face. He says that, without fresh spinal fluid, he'll lose all his senses. Dr. Madden melts away and dies muttering Emily's name.Lena saves Emily only because of the baby, and that Amy was that baby. Dale says that three more corpses appeared after Dr. Madden's death. Dale realises that "Amy" is Emily. As soon as she takes out her shades, Amy is clearly Emily, who hasn't grown old, and picks the rose which Madden had given that injection.She got that disease from him; in fact, she died from Lena's shot. Emily has poisoned Dale with the tea. She wants to keep well-stocked. In order to keep feeling his baby inside her, she must have fresh spinal fluid as well.A white-haired Lena gives a screaming Dale an injection.Back to Lovecraft, who feels more and more warm-up. One of the monks checks on him. Armed with a knife, he approaches the safebox. The monk checks that the door is securely locked. Now, the letter W appears engraved.Story 3: Whispers Downtown Philadelphia's wasteland is inhabited by somebody who people call The Butcher. Police officer Sarah (Signy Coleman) is driving like crazy after him. Her partner on the force, Paul (Obba Babatundé) thinks that she's driving like a maniac because they made love together but he didn't want to have a relationship with her afterwards; he even offers to quit if she stops behaving like crazy. Sarah is afraid of being a mother. The butcher leaves his car and ges away on foot. The police car bumps onto the abandoned car and it flips over.A man with pink-coloured boots takes alive Paul away. Sarah is badly hurt as well. She tries to contact control, but there is only static. She follows the trail of blood and opens a door, some pigeons scare her. There is a dark long corridor; the butcher pulls from Paul and enters onto an elevator. Sarah shoots the controls of the lift.She falls down a hole but, luckily, she had tripped onto a thread of coil, so she is left hanging upside down but without dying. She reaches the elevator shaft - which is located in an abandoned factory. She finds a weirdly-looking man. Harold Benedict (Don Calfa) says that the building is his, so that the butcher should pay him rent. She threatens him with her gun so that he opens a door, but he says that he's lost all the keys, and that the building swallows things and people as though they never existed. She wants to go down below, so he takes her though a series of corridors.Mrs. Daisy/Lilly/Rose Benedict (Judith Drake), his blind wife, shoots them. Harold says that he's just called the police. The couple lives in a makeshift room in the abandoned building, and Sarah sees the Necronomicon , but doesn't particularly call her attention. Harold shows him a backdoor door to the corridor, where there are signs of further blood droplets. Sarah feels pain in her tummy. Mrs. Benedict immediately feels that she's pregnant, and she starts arguing with Harold about the reasons why they didn't have any children, ...which annoys Sarah some more. She screams for them to shut up and take her to the tunnel.Harold has to clear out the entrance and she forces him to go with her. Lilly tells Sarah that it's scary to bring a new life to this world, and she guesses correctly that her partner is the father. Sarah forces Harold to go with her. Lilly tells her that the butcher is an alien and was around even before the dinosaurs.In the tunnel, there are corridors akin to an Egyptian pyramid. Harold goes by lighting candles. They follow Paul's trail. Suddenly, there are two trails of blood, because Paul is not the first one to be down there. Harold thinks that the Butcher works for the aliens, but that he's human. The encriptions on the walls are of human sacrifises. Sometimes, Sarah feels something, like whispers in the wind. It looks as though somebody were following them.Harold steps on more blood, so he produces the pair of pinky boots and puts them on. Sarah gets angry on recognising the pair of boots, so she aims at him. At that moment, a hand with a stick throws one of the candles to the floor. Harold calls for Daisy / Rose, but Sarah thinks that if Harold is not the butcher, Daisy must be. She shouts that they are not married and that she is the person who is turning off all the lights. Harold tells her that if she kills her baby, Sarah will be the real butcher.Daisy/Rose/Lilly appears and sets her on fire, and pushes her down a hole. The couple take the ladder out of the hole, leaving Sarah for dead. She puts off the fire with her jacket. There are plenty of bloodied skeletons around, and a octopus-like arm goes after her. She gets up an engraved stone and promises to have the baby. She shoots the walls, which bleed a green gooey.She steps down from that weird-looking shrine and tends to Paul's call. However, his head is mostly disappeared and you can see to the other side. Paul attacks Sarah, who shoots him repeatedly.The gory alien bats have taken Pauls' brain. It says that they need them to reproduce, and advises Sarah to watch the walls. They spring from the walls and corner her.When she wakes up, Harold and Daisy tell them that she'd better look at her situation as a transition, that she won't have to pay rent, and that she'll think everything was a nightmare. The aliens are hungry for the bone medule.Sarah wakes up at hospital. Harold is the doctor, and Daisy is Sarah's mother. Sarah caused herself an abortion, and her mother forgives her if she'll forgive herself. She enquires about Paul, who is brain dead in the bed besides hers. Paul has been completely taken, and they are feeding him green goo.Sarah shouts. Her mother tells her to shut up because she's gonna scare the baby. Sarah asks her what she's talking about, as she had said that the baby was dead. The mother says that the baby is not dead, it's only that Sarah was not fit to be a mother. She opens up her blouse and shows the baby being inside the womb of one of those alien-bat creatures. Sarah screams, punches her shades away and screams at her empty eye sockets. With that motion, she realises that she's lost half of one of her arms. She screams and the hospital sheets gets pulled over. We can see she's lost her two legs as well.Daisy and Harold are pushing Sarah down. Now the hospital bed is at the cave, and the creatures approach Sarah. They are sucking the narrow bones of Sarah's dettached limbs. Daisy pushes Sarah down and stays with her. Harold wants to leave, but it's Sarah who has the keys.The monk from the beginning tells Lovecraft that now that everything is over, he only has to unlock the door. Lovecraft says he's lost it. The monk calls him a fool and tells him to put the Necronomicon back to its place.Something is rising from below the floor. The book starts to work and tentacles stop Lovecraft from leaving. The monk enters through the bars of the rail. Lovecraft cuts the tentacles of the monster creature with the knife he'd disguised as his walking stick. The monk says that the secrets of the Necronomicon have to be paid with his life. Lovecraft reveals the monster behind the skin of the monk.The monk forces him to face and await the starfish-like monster which is travelling from behind the vault.The door opens itself, letting Lovecraft go. Lovecraft walks out non-chalantly. The cab driver is talking to a police officer. He leaves among admonitions of danger, because he's released a great danger. The taxi driver (Brian Yuzna) speaks to Lovecraft. He is happy, because he's carrying the Necronomicon with him.---