Businessman Robert Kraft (Richard Boone) takes over for a year as the trustee manager of the Immortal Hills cemetery as part of his community duties.
Kraft idly sticks a couple of black pins (meaning “occupied”) in a large wall map of cemetery plots instead of white pins (“vacant”).
The two owners of those cemetery plots both die in a horrific traffic accident.
He does it again and the next man drops dead of heart failure.
Kraft believes he has been given a supernatural power to inflict death with the pins and becomes beset with guilt until he’s verging on a complete breakdown.
Most of the film is a particularly effective exercise in low-key terror, and it’s a pity that the ingenious scriptwriter (Louis Garfinkle) couldn’t provide a more satisfactory ending. The climax really lets the film down.
The cemetery scenes were filmed at the Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles.
Robert Kraft
Richard Boone Andy McKee
Theodore Bikel Ann Craig
Peggy Maurer George Kraft
Howard Smith Jess Jessup
Herbert Anderson Lt. Clayborne
Robert Osterloh Henry Trowbridge
Russ Bender Elizabeth Drexel
Lynette Bernay William Isham
Cyril Delevanti Bill Honegger
Ken Drake Charlie Bates
Matt Moore Stuart Drexel
Glen Vernon
The two owners of those cemetery plots both die in a horrific traffic accident.
