An an introverted teenager tells his parents he going on a ski trip, but instead spends his time alone in a basement.

Young poetess Rose Elliot buys a book from a local antique dealer, a diary in Latin of an architect, E. Varelli. She learns of the Three Mothers, and believes her apartment building is one of their houses. She pleads her brother Mark, who is studying musicology in Rome, to come, because she is afraid. Mark's friend Sara reads her letter, which he left behind in class, and discovers the school is run by the Mater Lacrimarum, and is killed for this knowledge. The house of Mater Suspiriorum has already been destroyed, and by the time Mark arrives in New York City, he is investigating his sister's murder.

The cellar of an old hotel is built on top of the door to the beyond. Bloody zombies roam there. A young woman who is heir of the hotel wants to restaurate it. She is confronted with strange events. A painter has a lethal fall, the plumber vanishes and her friend breaks his neck. When she escapes to the hospital of a friendly doctor she doesn't know what a nightmare is waiting there...

Anna Manni is a policewoman trying to capture a vicious serial rapist and killer. The problem is that she suffers from "Stendhal's syndrome", a psychosomatic disease that gives her dizziness and hallucinations when she is exposed to the sight of paintings and artistic masterpieces. When the maniac lures her into a trap inside Florence's famous Uffizi museum, her troubles are just beginning...