At the prompting of his diplomat friend, Alex, writer Ted Fletcher takes his wife, Laura, and daughter, Amy, on an extended working holiday. Alex finds a house for them in Kyoto, Japan, and the Fletchers move in, laughing off rumors that the place is haunted. But the ghost of 19th-century samurai Shigero turns out to be very real, and is intent on making the family re-enact an ancient murder-suicide.

Count Dracula and his wife capture beautiful young women and chain them in their dungeon, to be used when they need to satisfy their thirst for blood.

In a small, US costal town with many Spanish speakers, a motorcycle gang arrives on holiday. Also in town to try to reconnect with his pregnant girlfriend, Karen, is businessman Paul Collier. Paul and a leader of the cyclists, J.J., knew each other years before, so when the gang comes upon the couple and, led by the menacing Bunny, beats up Paul and begins a sexual assault of Karen, J.J. tries to intervene: he suggests they hold cycle-riding contests, with the winner claiming Karen (he promises, sotto voce, to set her free if he wins). After the contests commence, Paul crawls away to look for help. He meets with a shrug from a cowardly sheriff's deputy; where can he turn?