Old friends Chuck and Ferdie work at a gas station. By chance, their paths cross with those of Moose, a gangster on the run from the police, who, however, is soon killed. As a token of gratitude for staying with him until the end, the gangster manages to hand them papers certifying ownership of his old mansion—the house where the gangster had hidden his loot. However, besides Chuck and Ferdie, other claimants to the money also appear.
Peggy, who has recently been released from a psychiatric hospital, is attacked by a stranger who tries to strangle her. Her young husband, Robert, refuses to believe what has happened and takes her to the village where he works as a schoolteacher. But even there, Peggy cannot find peace; she feels as though she is being watched, and soon the attack happens again.
The postwar years. Police officer Goro Murakami has his gun stolen on a bus. In his search for the missing weapon, he is forced to visit many parts of Tokyo, including secret hideouts, slums, and vacant lots. Meanwhile, several murders are committed using the stolen gun.
New York. Renowned music mogul David King, famous for his impeccable ear, is trying to retain control of his record label and is investing all his resources in acquiring a controlling stake to prevent its sale. Soon, an unknown assailant kidnaps his 17-year-old son, Trey, and demands a ransom of $17.5 million for his return. The police get involved, and it later turns out that the criminal made a mistake and kidnapped the son of King’s driver, but he continues to demand the ransom anyway, threatening to kill the boy if the demand is refused. The man faces a difficult moral choice, because if he pays the demanded amount for someone else’s child, he will be ruined.
Dean Corso, one of the foremost experts in locating, appraising, and purchasing rare books, accepts an unusual but extremely lucrative commission from the owner of the world’s largest library of occult books: to authenticate the crown jewel of the collection, a 17th-century folio titled *Nine Gates to the Realm of Ghosts*, which, according to legend, can be used to summon Lucifer himself. He is about to embark on a journey through Europe fraught with danger and mystery. But only when the bodies of people Dean Corso had met just recently begin to turn up on his path to unraveling the mystery of the “Nine Gates” does a sinister truth dawn on him. He realizes that in this devilish game, not only his life but also his soul is at stake.
Mike Church is a private investigator from Los Angeles who specializes in locating missing persons. He is working on the case of a young woman he calls Grace. She suffers from amnesia and remembers nothing of her past. She is constantly tormented by nightmares in which Margaret Strauss, a pianist from the late 1940s, is killed with scissors by her husband, Roman Strauss. During the investigation, Church turns to Franklin Madson, an antique dealer, for help. With the aid of hypnosis, they hope to uncover the truth.
After responding to an emergency call at a hotel, a police inspector found no evidence of a crime but noticed some strange goings-on. An avalanche prevented him from leaving that same day, and soon the inspector discovered the body of a murdered guest. Suspicion falls on everyone staying at the hotel.
November 1995. Angela, a film studies student, is writing her thesis on “Audiovisual Violence.” She asks her advisor, Professor Figueroa, to retrieve several tapes from the university archives containing films that are banned from TV broadcast due to graphic scenes of violence, and she makes the same request to her classmate Cheme, who, according to rumors, has a collection of such films at home. Though slightly embarrassed, Figueroa manages to take one of the tapes from the “Pornography” section, and while watching the film in the university theater, he dies. Angela is the first to find the professor’s body, and she takes the tape home. It turns out that the tape contains a snuff film, and Chema recognizes the victim as Vanessa, a student at their university who went missing two years ago.
