- A serial killer is in the area where some private nurses have locked themselves in a large house, except for one basement window.
- The third in a series of murders over the previous two weeks is reported on television and local police reveal there's a psychotic madman who preys only on live-in nurses on the loose. One dark and stormy night, Nurse Stella Crosson (Dana Wynter) and Nurse Betty Ames (T.C. Jones) are tending to their client, a man with a heart condition who resides in a creepy old mansion just outside of town and needs constant attention. A phone call from the murderer informs the women that he knows they're alone and intends to pay them a visit before the night is over. Checking to make sure all the doors and windows are locked, Stella suddenly realizes that she overlooked a basement window - a mistake that might prove all too costly.—alfiehitchie
- A young female visiting nurse named Frieda (Cathie Merchant) is seen leaving the home of one of her clients one night. He offers to walk her to her car, but she insists she will be fine. But as she walks down the dark, deserted street, she is stalked by a large male figure in a dark raincoat and hat. The man follows her until she is isolated, and then he confronts her, calling her by name. Startled, she looks up at him and he says "You're such a pretty nurse." Then he strangles her to death.
Some time later, two home-care nurses are watching television in a large, isolated house. Stella (Dana Wynter) and Betty Ames (T.C. Jones) are watching a news report on the serial killer; Frieda's body has just been discovered in a park. Stella is a younger, shapely woman, while Betty is middle-aged, matronly woman. Stella and Betty seem to be unfamiliar with one another, with the nurses assigned to the house changing every so often. Their patient, a young man named Glendon Baker (John Kerr), has an unnamed affliction that requires him to sleep in an oxygen tent. After the broadcast, the two nurses talk nervously about the murders, spooked by the fact that the serial killer is not only believed to be in the immediate vicinity, but that he also targets home-care nurses such as themselves. Stella begins to go around the house and make sure all of the doors and windows are locked. Along the way she encounters the housekeeper, Maude (Louise Latham), and a handyman named Sam (E.J. André), who are in the kitchen. Betty appears and tells Stella that Mr. Baker's oxygen tank is running low, chiding her for being forgetful. Sam must go into the village for more oxygen, requiring him to leave the three women alone with the incapacitated Mr. Baker.
Stella goes into the basement and checks the windows down there; several of the low windows are unlocked and flapping, and one of them in particular is located right next to a ladder, as if someone could have used it to gain entry to the house. Before Stella can lock it, she sees a mouse and runs screaming from the basement, leaving the window unfastened. Maude is similarly excited by the incident, and begins to take sips of whiskey from a bottle to calm her nerves.
Maude begins to talk excitedly about various murders she's heard of, and she reacts ominously to the approaching storm, which covers the house in a torrential downpour. Maude comments that with all of the rain, the dirt road turns to mud, and Sam may not be able to get back up to the house, adding to their feeling of isolation.
One of the doctors from Stella's clinic calls to check on the house, and he reveals that there has been another victim found strangled in the area. Stella assures him that they are secure in the house, and Betty asks her again if she has locked all of the windows. Stella seems to almost remember the unlocked window in the basement, but she says that yes, she's locked everything. Meanwhile, the cat that Maude put in the basement to catch the roaming mouse has escaped through the open window.
Mr. Baker awakens and seems very lively for someone who should be sick. He is young and wealthy and has purchased the house in the last year. Stella is surprised when he asks her to marry him; he says he feels very at ease with her and, conversely, feels uneasy when Nurse Ames is around. Stella doesn't say whether she will or won't marry Mr. Baker, although she does say she would never live in the spooky house. Baker then goes back under the oxygen tent to sleep some more.
Meanwhile, Maude is still drinking herself silly in the kitchen and she hears a man's insane laughter. The voice tells her "You have such a pretty neck!" Maude stalks through the house with a board looking for the psycho, whom she is certain is now in the house. She turns on so many lights that she blows a fuse, plunging the house into darkness. Betty and Stella try to subdue her, and finally she swoons from all the booze she's had. They put her to bed, but she disrupts them again later by screaming; she is sure she's heard the maniacal laughter again. Betty suggests they give her a sedative, and soon she is unconscious.
After Maude is asleep, Betty remarks "Now there are only two of us!" She asks Stella if she's ever seen anybody that's been strangled; the phone rings and Betty answers it. Her face becomes frightened, and it seems to be the maniac on the line with her. Betty hangs up and says the man told her that he knows they are alone, and that he saw Betty when she arrived by taxi the evening before. Betty makes a phone call and Stella hears her talking to the police, summoning them to the house. After the phone call, Betty tells Stella that the police said it would take them about an hour to reach the house. Stella is terrified, and together they find the cat outside Mr. Baker's window; this forces Stella to admit that she left a window unlocked. She rushes down into the basement to lock it, and is terrified when she sees a man approaching the house. She locks the window and screams, summoning Betty. When she tells Betty there is a man outside, they try the telephone, but the line is now dead. Betty sends Stella to Mr. Baker's room.
Stella is unable to rouse Mr. Baker from sleep, and she hears Betty screaming from downstairs. Terrified, she finds Betty hiding under the stairs, saying that the man is in the house. Betty points to a figure lurking behind the open front door, a man in a dark raincoat and hat. Stella hurls a fire poker at him, and the stiff figure falls over. Stella realizes that it is Sam, having returned from the village with the oxygen, already dead when Stella hit him. Stella rushes over to him and hears the voice of the murderer behind her. She turns to see Nurse Ames coming toward her, speaking in a man's voice. Ames grabs her and tells her she is such a pretty nurse; as Stella struggles with her, she pulls off the wig and the front of the blouse comes open to reveal a man's chest underneath; the murderer was in the house all along, dressed as another nurse, toying with Stella before murdering her.
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