NIGHT OF THE GHOULS

At the beginning, Criswell rises from a coffin and narrates the events of the film. Then a montage starts showing juvenile delinquency, street fighting, and driving under the influence. The sequence ends with the bloody corpse of the drunk driver staring blankly at the camera. According to Criswell's narration, this is a rather typical end to "a drunken holiday weekend".

The film then cuts to a teenaged couple kissing in a convertible. When the boy gets too demanding, the girl slaps him and exits the car. The Black Ghost, an undead creature that lurks in the woods near them, later kills the young couple. The murders receive press attention but are thought to be the work of a maniac.

In a police station of East Los Angeles, California, Inspector Robbins waits for Detective Bradford at his office. Bradford soon arrives, dressed in a formal evening wear. He was called to work while on his way to the opera, and he protests the idea of working an unexpected assignment. But Robbins informs him that the case involves the "old house on Willows lake", which played a part in an earlier case investigated by Bradford. The house was destroyed by lightning, but someone rebuilt it. A flashback scene establishes that the elderly Edwards couple had a terrifying encounter with the White Ghost by this house. Having heard the story, Bradford accepts the assignment to investigate the old house. Robbins assigns Kelton to escort the Detective. Kelton has previously dealt with the supernatural in the events depicted in Bride of the Monster and Plan 9 from Outer Space.

Bradford drives to the house and enters through an open door, to be confronted by Dr. Acula, who is dressed in a turban and cryptically mentions that there are many already in the house, both living and dead. Bradford convinces Acula that he is just another prospective client, so his entrance is accepted. One of "the many" in the house is a remnant of its past, Lobo. A character from Bride of the Monster, Lobo is depicted as disfigured from the flames which once destroyed this house. Outside the house, Kelton arrives late and has brief encounters with both the Black Ghost and the White Ghost. Meanwhile, at a séance, Acula and his clients share the table with human skeletons. Dr. Acula turns out to be a fake psychic by the name of "Karl", as Bradford suspected earlier, and reveals that the White Ghost is an actress named Sheila. Her role is to scare away intruders. She is concerned by the presence of the Black Ghost which is not part of their hoax, though the cynical Acula dismisses her fears — he does not believe in the supernatural.

Both Bradford and Kelton have strange and sometimes violent confrontations within the house, and are eventually joined by reinforcements. As their accomplices fall to the police, Karl and Sheila attempt to escape through a mortuary room. There they are confronted by a group of undead men. Among them is Criswell, who is the only one that can speak, who explains to Karl that the supposedly "fake" psychic does have genuine powers and his necromantic efforts actually work. These dead men were restored to life, if only for a few hours, but they intend to take Karl with them in their return to the grave. As Karl dies, Sheila escapes the house to meet her own fate. The Black Ghost, genuinely undead, takes control of the impostor and tells her that it is time to join "the others" at the grave. As the police try to understand what happened to the deceased Karl, we see an undead Sheila, now truly a White Ghost.

In a brief epilogue, the narrator returns to his coffin. Claiming that it is time for both the old dead and the new to return to their graves, he reminds the viewer that they too can soon join them in death.

Karl (Dr. Acula) and Sheila attempt to escape but are confronted by the undead, including Criswell, who reveals their fate.

The ending drives home Ed Wood’s love for poetic justice: the con artists who manipulate the fear of the supernatural ultimately fall victim to real supernatural forces. The presence of Criswell as the voice of the dead blurs the boundaries between showmanship and genuine horror, landing the film somewhere between parody and macabre morality tale.