When Professor Bolton [Mariano Garcia], an archeologist doing research on Vampire Island (somewhere between Africa and India), is killed, his son Chris [Andrew Prine] comes to the island to bury his father, something not easily done since the professor's body is pinned under several tons of tomb. The tomb belongs to Hannah, fiance of King Louis VII. Legend has it that Hannah became a vampire and that Louis sealed her alive in the tomb such that, should the tomb ever be opened before the return of Christ, Hannah would rise again. Chris is met at the dock by Peter [Mark Damon], a grad student doing research on the Crusades, which is also what brought Louis and Hannah to Vampire Island in the first place. Peter, along with his sister Mary [Patty Sheppard], has been living on the island, and Peter seems to be the only inhabitant not fettered by the vampire superstition. However, Peter is actually the one responsible for the professor's death, arranged as a ploy to get Chris Bolton to the island so that the heavy tomb could be moved and Hannah released.