Reporter Mark English has been assigned to write a story on The Great Vorelli, a dark hypnotist and ventriloquist whose popular act includes a sarcastic talking, walking, dummy called Hugo.  When English convinces his girlfriend, Marianne, to volunteer to join the entertainer on stage, Vorelli develops his own interest in the beautiful, young woman who just happens to be the heiress to a fortune.  But as English continues his investigation, he is shocked to discover the sinister origins of the dummy and soon has reason to fear for the lives of those around this sadistic showman...