Night of the Ghouls

The prologue has Criswell rising from a coffin, leaving unclear if the "metaphysical" narrator is awaking from a a normal sleep, or whether he is actually a corpse returning to life. The latter implication can be seen as foreshadowing the final scenes of the film.One of the opening scenes features a montage of seemingly unrelated events, which seem to feature Ed Wood's view of the post-war era and its social problems. Juvenile delinquency, street fighting, and driving under the influence. A memorable sequence has a car driving off a cliff and crashing. The sequence ends with the bloody corpse of the drunk driver staring blankly at the camera. According to Crisell's narration, this is a rather typical end to "a drunken holiday weekend".The narrative properly begins with a teenaged couple kissing in a convertible convertible, parked at night in what is probably a lovers' lane. When the boy gets too aggressive, the girl ends the embrace with a slap and exits the car. At this point the narrative introduces the Black Ghost which lurks in the woods near them. In short order, first the girl and then the boy are attacked by the undead creature and die. According to Criswell's narration, the two murders received press attention but were thought to be the work of a maniac.In a police station in East Los Angeles, Inspector Robbins is waiting for Detective Bradford at his office. Bradford soon arrives, dressed in a top hat and formal evening wear. He was called to work while on his way to the opera, and he protests the idea of working an unexpected assignment. But Robbins informs him that the case involves the "old house on Willows lake", which played a part in an earlier case investigated by Bradford. (This is a reference to the events of Bride of the Monster). The house was destroyed by lightning, but someone rebuilt it. A flashback scene establishes that the elderly Edwards couple had a terrifying encounter with the White Ghost by this house. Having heard the story, Bradford accepts the assignment to investigate the old house. Robbins assigns Officer Kelton (Paul Marco) to escort the Detective, despite the protests of the man that "Monsters! Space people! Mad doctors! They didn't teach me about such things in the police academy! And yet that's all I've been assigned to since I became on active duty". The line is used to recall Kelton's experiences in Bride of the Monster and Plan 9 from Outer Space, and to explicitly connect this film to its predecessors.Bradford drives a Pontiac Bonneville to the house and enters through an open door, to be confronted by the Dr. Acula (Kenne Duncan). Dressed in a turban and cryptically mentioning that there many already in the house, both living dead, Acula is a rather strange figure. But Bradford convinces Acula that he is just another prospective client, so his entrance is accepted. The narrator soon establishes that one of "the many" in the house is a remnant of its past, Lobo. A character from Bride, Lobo is depicted as disfigured from the flames which once destroyed this house. Outside the house, Kelton arrives late and has brief encounters with both the Black and the White Ghost. The scene shifts to a strange séance, where Acula and his clients share the table with human skeletons.A subsequent scene both confirms that Dr. Acula is a fake psychic by the name of "Karl", as Bradford suspected earlier, and reveals that the White Ghost is an actress by the name of "Sheila". Her role is to scare away intruders. She is concerned by the presence of the Black Ghost which is not part of their hoax, though the cynical Acula dismisses her fears. He doesn't believe in the supernatural.Both Bradford and Kelton have strange and sometimes violent confrontations within the house, and are eventually joined by reinforcements. As their accomplishes fall to the police, Karl and Sheila attempt to escape through a mortuary room. There they are confronted by a group of undead men, including one played by Criswell. The latter is only one of them who speaks, explaining to Karl that the supposedly "fake" psychic does have genuine powers and his necromantic efforts actually worked. These dead men were restored to life, id only for a few hours. But they intent to take Karl with them in their return to the grave.As Karl dies, Sheila escapes the house to meet her own fate. The Black Ghost, genuinely undead, takes control of the impostor and tells her that it is time to join "the others" at the grave. As the police try to understand what happened to the deceased Karl, the narrative ends with a shot of an undead Sheila. Now truly a White Ghost.As brief epilogue which also closes the frame story, the narrator returns to his coffin. Claiming that it is time for both the old dead and the new to return to their graves. Reminding the viewer that he/she too can soon join them in death.

Question: Who do the dead men plan to take with them to the grave?
Answer: Karl