The film opens to two muscle-bound men dressed in loincloths approaching a crypt. They open the doors, revealing a coffin. They remove the lid and exit the crypt, then the inhabitant of the coffin (Criswell) sits up to deliver an opening narration.
A lone Chevrolet Corvair drives down a California desert road. Its passengers, Bob and Shirley, are arguing over the decision to use this night to search for a cemetery. Bob is a horror writer who hopes that the scene of a cemetery at night will bring him inspiration. The conversation ends when Bob accidentally drives the car off the road and over a cliff.
The next scene opens to a nocturnal image of a fog-shrouded cemetery. The lonely figure of the Emperor walks towards a marble altar, sits, and then summons his "Princess of the Night", the Black Ghoul, who appears and bows before him. The Emperor warns that if the night's entertainment fails to please him, he will banish the souls of the entertainers to eternal damnation, indicating that he is an all-powerful demonic being.
As the full moon appears, the Black Ghoul summons the first dancer of the night, a Native American woman. The Black Ghoul explains that this woman loved flames, and that her lovers and she died in flames. The woman dances and strips before the flames of the cemetery. The Black Ghoul then introduces the second dancer of the night, a street walker in life. While the woman dances, Bob and Shirley make their way to the cemetery and start observing the dance from a distance. Shirley suspects that they are observing a college initiation, though Bob seriously doubts her theory.
The Emperor himself summons the third dancer, a woman who worshiped gold above else. The Golden Girl dances in her turn, and the Emperor instructs his loin-clothed servants to reward her with gold. The supposed reward is soon revealed to be a punishment, as the servants place her in a cauldron with liquid gold. What emerges from the cauldron is a golden statue of the living woman who entered. The servants transport the immobile statue to a nearby crypt.
