Vincent Price plays a man who inherits his ancestral New England estate, only to find it still cursed by the vengeful spirit of his warlock ancestor, Joseph Curwen, burned at the stake generations earlier for his unholy experiments and worship of the Old Ones. As Price's character is slowly possessed by Curwen's malevolent will, he becomes obsessed with reviving his ancestor and continuing his forbidden work, terrorizing his wife and the fearful townsfolk. Directed and produced by Roger Corman, the film is marketed as part of his Poe cycle despite actually being adapted from H.P. Lovecraft's "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward," with Lon Chaney Jr. and Debra Paget rounding out the cast.