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This follow-up to the George Romero/Stephen King-launched anthology series features five new tales of horror and a wraparound. The main stories deal with alternative realities (“Alice”), possessed communication devices (“The Radio”), vampires and serial killers in lust (“Call Girl”), mad inventors (“The Professor’s Wife”), and hauntings from beyond the grave (“Haunted Dog”).
Serebryakov, a retired professor and his beautiful, much younger second wife, Yeléna, visit their country estate, which funds their urban lifestyle. Vanya, brother of the Professor’s first wife, who manages the farm estate, and the local Doctor Astrov, both fall under Yelena’s spell, while complaining of the endless ennui of their provincial existence. Astrov is an experienced physician who performs his job conscientiously, but has lost all idealism and spends much of his time drinking. Sofya, the Professor’s daughter by his first wife, who works to keep the estate going with her uncle Vanya, meanwhile suffers from lack of esteem over what she sees as her own lack of beauty, and from an unrequited love for Dr. Astrov. Matters are brought to a head when the Professor announces his intention to sell the estate, Vanya and Sofya’s home, to achieve a higher income for himself and his wife.
Eccentric inventor Prof. John Richards seems to have hit pay dirt when he designs a contraption which can move large objects instantly by breaking them into atoms which can be streamed from one place to another. This new machine seems like a sure-fire hit, which has attracted the attention of Richards’ less-than-scrupulous assistant Martin, who wants to steal the new invention and sell it himself. In order to make it easier for Martin to do just that, he uses the machine to create a duplicate of Richards, which will do his evil bidding. The professor’s son, Jack, and wife, Barbara, learn about Martin’s underhanded doings, and Barbara uses another one of her husband’s gimmicks to get revenge against Martin — she turns herself invisible.
