Johnny Smith is a schoolteacher with his whole life ahead of him but, after leaving his fiancee's home one night, is involved in a car crash which leaves him in a coma for 5 years. When he wakes, he discovers he has an ability to see into the past, present and future life of anyone with whom he comes into physical contact.

Jack Palance stars as a self-serving, abusive boor who becomes stranded (along with his two children) by a thunderstorm, forcing them to take shelter in an isolated country estate owned by a group of mysterious and wealthy old dowagers. Seeing a golden opportunity, Palance soon turns to plundering their estate, but his plans collide with the secret activities of a Satanic snake-cult who carry out ritual sacrifices in the attic.

A horror film about a screenwriter who loses the ability to distinguish between his fantasy world and the real world, with disastrous consequences. As he ruminates on his place in any world and loses his grip, he also loses his wife and his children's respect, and critics tear him apart. The final undoing of this screenwriter is a deadline that must be met at all costs, costs that perhaps are too great.

A man tries to uncover an unconventional psychologist's therapy techniques on his institutionalized wife, while a series of brutal attacks committed by a brood of mutant children coincides with the husband's investigation.