SODOMA'S GHOST

At an isolated country house during World War II, AWOL Nazi soldiers indulge in orgiastic behavior with prostitutes. One soldier films the cavorting with a movie camera. While viewing the film, the Germans revels are brought to an end when Allied bombs land on the villa, destroying it.

In the present day, the teenager Mark, and his friends Paul, John, Anne, Celine, and Maria are driving to Paris after a touring holiday in the countryside. Driving off the main road, the group descends on the old country house. Finding the villa abandoned, they break in through the back door and elect to stay for the night. The place is plush, fully furnished, and dotted with erotic paintings and photographs. It is also haunted by the ghosts of the Nazis. That night, Willy, the young Nazi soldier who filmed the orgy, emerges from a mirror and seduces Anne as she sleeps alone in a room. Anne responds to his violent sexual overtures. After waking up the following day, Anne discovers she is unmarked and assumes it was all a bad dream.

The teenagers attempt to leave the next day, but their one attempt to drive away is thwarted when the route leads mysteriously back to the villa. Returning inside, they loiter around until dusk, when they decide to stay for another night. The next morning, they try to leave again, only this time their vehicle will not start. They go back inside to phone for help and are met with sinister responses over the phone by the police station as they attempt to call. Then, they discover that the phone line has been cut all this time, and that they are locked in the house. The window shutters resist their efforts to break through, plus all the doors are locked shut too. Claustrophobic attacks happen when Maria begins to lose her sanity. Soon, bitter arguments occur between the three men. Mark gets drunk on wine found in the cellar. After taunting Maria, he wanders off to explore more of the house.

In a room, Mark finds Nazis playing cards around a table. They invite him to join them. The others disappear, and Mark starts playing a five-hand of cards with Willy. The loser must put a revolver with a single bullet to his head and pull the trigger three times. Mark survives the game and gets his reward: an assignation with a prostitute in a neighboring room. His desire turns to horror when his hands go right through her body and into a bloody pulp. Running out of the room, Mark sees Paul, who transforms into a Nazi. Lunging at Paul, Mark falls down the stairs and breaks his neck. The others drag him into the living room, where he dies before their eyes.

Maria retreats to a room where a ghost prostitute attempts to seduce her and sow seeds of anxiety in her by saying that her lover, Anne, is cheating on her with Celine. Paul then gets approached and seduced by a possessed Anne, who turns into a rotting corpse. Looking for a way out, Paul and John find a can of film in the cellar, which seems to hold the key to the ghosts power. As Mark's corpse rots before their eyes, they hear footsteps of the approaching Nazi ghosts. The four surviving teens flee into the parlor, and decide to play the film to solve the mystery of the supernatural occurrences. The film shows the orgy while the ghosts attempt to break down the door. Just when the ghosts break down the door, the film ends with the explosion that killed the Nazis. The ghosts disappear, and the youths black out from the explosion that rocks the building. Waking up, they find themselves outside the now-ruined shell of the villa. Their experiences have apparently been nothing more than dreams, and the teens are relieved to discover that Mark is alive after all. Having enough of their adventures, the six teens pack up in their car and drive off.

Mark is killed after losing a deadly game with the ghosts, and the remaining teens are further tormented by spectral seductions and isolation. The source reveals that the can of film in the cellar seems to hold the secret to the ghosts' haunting power.

The film’s ending underscores Fulci’s bleak vision: the villa serves as a decadent purgatory, trapping its victims in a cycle of seduction, violence, and spectral manipulation. The can of film is a literal and symbolic link, tying the past’s atrocities to the present and suggesting that some horrors—caught on camera—refuse to stay buried. The survivors face not just vengeful spirits, but the inescapable legacy of evil, decadence, and voyeurism.