Edgar Allan Poe's spine-tingler of the same name is the inspiration for Lucio Fulci's thriller about a psychic professor (Patrick Magee) with a strange and deadly mission: To summon the dead. Not only that, he's also able to direct their wayward spirits into his black cat, who then becomes his instrument for revenge. When the bodies of his victims turn up with scratches, however, a photographer (Mimsy Farmer) begins to put two and two together.