Peter and his wife Alison meet on their honeymoon trip through Hungary to the Hungarian physician Dr. Neither guest (Bela Lugosi). When the bus crashed in the middle of a storm and the driver dies, neither does a guest, the young couple walking to his friend, Poelzig, an Austrian architect (Boris Karloff) to which he was on his way.
He has his house in the middle of the desert to the ruins of a fortress in the First World War destroyed by name, Marmaros built, whose commander of the military engineer had once been. Now, Become a guest on the Suche nach seiner Familie. Poelzig zeigt Wedergast im Keller des Hauses eine Kammer. Darin befindet sich die balsamierte Leiche der Frau und die Tochter,wäre ebenfalls gestorben, behauptet Poelzig. Während in Wahrheit die Tochter als Geliebtein seinem Haus hält, hat er bereits den teuflischen Plan gefasst: Er will auch die neue Frau.
Als Poelzig die neue Frau entfürt, um sie als Opfer zu einer schwarzen Messe im Kellergewölbe zu bringen, machen sich Peter und Wedergast vorneinander unabhängig zur Rettung auf. Werdegast befreit Joan und tötet dabei Poelzig, indem er ihn ankettet und beginnt, ihm die Haut abzuziehen. Als Peter dazu stößt, glaubt er, Werdegast Joan and would threaten to shoot him before Joan exclaims to him that this is their liberator. Get this guest is injured. Joan and Peter save himself a long spiral staircase in the building, while the dying guest Get the ammunition chamber and thus beyond the building together with the underlying fortress ruins. In the final scene, Joan and Peter are in the compartment of a train from Budapest to Visegrád.
The film was the film for Universal's biggest hit of the year. In Italy, Germany, Austria and Finland, he was banned because of its cruelty immediately.
