Gamblers who "took" an out-of-town sucker in a crooked poker game feel shadowy vengeance closing in on them.

A former British spy stumbles into in a plot to overthrow Communism with the help of a supercomputer. But who is working for whom?

Musician Max Frost lends his backing to a Senate candidate who wants to give 18-year-olds the right to vote, but he takes things a step further than expected. Inspired by their hero's words, Max's fans pressure their leaders into extending the vote to citizens as young as 15. Max and his followers capitalize on their might by bringing new issues to the fore, but, drunk on power, they soon take generational warfare to terrible extremes.

Dr. Henry Armitage, an expert in the occult, goes to the old Whateley manor in Dunwich looking for Nancy Wagner, a student who went missing the previous night. He is turned away by Wilbur, the family's insidious heir, who has plans for the young girl. But Armitage won't be deterred. Through conversations with the locals, he soon unearths the Whateleys' darkest secret — as well as a great evil.

An old-time crook plans a heist. When one of his two partners is found out to be a black man tensions flare.

Civil War veteran Josiah Grey comes to a small town to be a gospel minister. In time, he has a family and many friends but also finds friction with a few of his parishioners.

A big-city cop is reassigned to the country after his superiors find him too angry to be an effective policeman. While on his temporary assignment he assists in a manhunt of a suspected murderer.

Jonas, a young drifter, is wandering in a deserted area on the road to Salina, Mexico. He stops at a desolate roadside service station when Mara, the owner, identifies him as her son Rocky, who disappeared four years ago. Feeling sorry for Mara, he decides to stay on and meets Mara's friend Warren and Rocky's sister Billie, but dark facts are to be revealed about the disappearance of Rocky.

Leona Stevenson is confined to bed and uses her telephone to keep in contact with the outside world. One day she overhears a murder plot on the telephone and is desperate to find out who is the intended victim.

The defense and the prosecution have rested and the jury is filing into the jury room to decide if a young Spanish-American is guilty or innocent of murdering his father. What begins as an open and shut case soon becomes a mini-drama of each of the jurors' prejudices and preconceptions about the trial, the accused, and each other.