When Lewis Barnavelt and Rosa Rita Pottinger explore an abandoned theater, they discover an unpublished opera score. Ignoring a strange omen, they show it to their music teacher, who heralds The Day of Doom as a masterpiece. Coincidentally, that's when eerie Henry Vanderhelm, the composer's grandson, arrives and suggests the townspeople stage the work. Only Vanderhelm knows that when the opera is performed, the dead will awaken...to help him enslave the world!