A group of film students plan an all-night horror film festival in order to raise funds for their cinema club. They decide to show a number of (fictional) horror films from the 1950's that rely on gimmicks such as 3-D, "Odorama", and electrical "buzzers" in seats. Unbeknownst to the group, a homicidal maniac is stalking the theater where the festival is being held. A filmmaker named Lanyard Gates, who murdered his family during a screening of his only film in the 1970's, supplies the decoy killer character, since young Maggie may or may not be his missing daughter...