Fred Saunders grieves for his dead wife Laura and when he hears her voice promising to come back to him, he orders Franz, the cemetery’s caretaker, to keep her vault unlocked, so that he can enter and gaze at her in her casket at will. His friend Greg Vaughn, a physician, advises him that his behavior is unhealthy, but Fred, who feels he caused Laura’s death in a car accident, continues to refuse social invitations. He attends a séance, but discovers that the medium is a fraud. He then visits a man who claims his wife was returned to him by the chanting, monk-robed Society of the Dead, but is horrified when the man introduces him to the bones and ashes of a corpse. Greg urges Fred to move on with his life, and his secretary Sandy, who is secretly attracted to him, tries to make Fred laugh by showing him funny ads in a newspaper. In that paper, Fred sees an advertisement, “Control Your Reincarnation,” to which he responds and meets Tana, who claims to know a man who can bring back life. The next evening, Tana takes Fred to the mansion of a doctor, who provides a demonstration of his abilities in a room set up like a theater. Having a flair for the dramatic, the doctor appears before a group of people on a stage with the corpse of a beautiful, recently deceased woman and asks a volunteer from the audience to confirm that she is really dead. Lying on another table is a living, but horribly disfigured woman who was injured in a chemical factory explosion. The doctor claims that he will use “selected reincarnation” to move the soul of the living woman into the healthy corpse. However, he explains, she must first die, and with the help of his single-mindedly loyal servant Thor, the doctor performs a guresome variation on the “old magician’s trick” of sawing the living woman in half. After she dies, he summons her soul using the fumes from a potion bottle that he wears around his neck. The spirit of the woman gets up and moves to the corpse, which awakens and rises. The doctor, who craves beautiful women, names the reanimated woman “Venus.” After the demonstration, Tana introduces Fred to the doctor, but Fred, who was repulsed by the murder despite its willing victim, says that he does not want his services. Later that night, Fred sees the ghost of Laura, who beckons him to visit her in the vault. The next day, Fred agrees to go out with Sandy, but then hears Laura calling him and immediately reneges. He instead arranges to visit the doctor again. The doctor explains to Fred that he cannot return Laura’s soul, but can infuse a different soul into Laura’s body, which retains some of her traits due to physical habits acquired through many years of living. When Fred asks for more information, the doctor explains that he discovered his formula one thousand years ago when he was a wizard: After experimenting for decades, the old wizard finds the correct formula to keep his soul on earth. When his body grows ill, he poisons his young apprentice and enters his body. When that body ages, his only choice is the young nurse who attends his sick bed. Over the years his body varies in gender, race and–when he takes a child’s body–age. In the present, the doctor tells Fred to bring him $50,000 in cash and he will begin the preparations. After Fred leaves, the doctor hopes to have a sexual encounter with Venus, but is shocked to find she was killed by the jealous Tana, who is angry that the doctor cast her aside. When Fred returns to the doctor with money, he is led to the theater room, where Tana is tied up. Threatening to kill Fred if he interferes, the doctor has Thor throw a knife into Tana’s heart then takes her body to the vault. There, after admiring Laura’s corpse, the doctor uses the fumes of his formula to pull Tana’s soul out of her body, but it refuses to enter Laura and dissipates. Foiled, the doctor explains that Laura’s body rejected Tana’s soul. Disapproving, Fred tells the doctor to keep the money, but wants to cancel the agreement. However, the doctor becomes obsessed with reviving Laura’s body for himself, and, without Fred’s knowledge, he and Thor kill several women in succession for their souls. Each is rejected, and the doctor develops a serious infection from a stab wound rendered by a boyfriend of one of the victims. Although he knows his current body is dying, the doctor vows not to stop until he succeeds in reviving Laura. Fred has a nightmare in which Laura begs for peace and afterward has the vault locked. Encouraged by Greg, Fred courts Sandy and soon falls in love with her. When the doctor brings another body to the vault, Franz, who was reincarnated into a new body by the doctor years ago, unlocks it for him, but Laura’s body rejects that soul as well. Confounded, the doctor studies his old books to determine why he is failing. After he sends Fred the head of a victim with a note vowing to find a soul for Laura, Fred arranges to have her body buried in a grave. Eventually, the doctor concludes that he needs a soul that is as strong as Laura’s and whose body must be killed gently without violence. Using magic, he calls out, asking to be shown the right person and sees the face of Sandy. He then ponders on the proper way to take her soul and eventually decides upon bleeding her to death. Meanwhile, Greg and Fred discuss what to do about the doctor. Although Fred has professional relationships with many policemen and attorneys, he realizes that even if they believe him, they can do nothing without evidence. Meanwhile, the doctor kidnaps Sandy, ties her to a table and slits her wrist. When Fred and Greg discover she is missing, they alert the police and, with them, proceed to the mansion. As Sandy’s life drains out with her blood, they enter the mansion, shoot Thor and rescue Sandy in time to save her. However, the doctor escapes and hitchhikes to the cemetery, where Franz directs him to Laura’s grave. Later, with her casket open, the weakened doctor dies while inhaling the fumes of his formula. His spirit enters Laura’s body, which rises and walks away, saying, “Fred, I’ve come back, darling.”