The Horror of It All

American salesman Jack Robinson falls in love with Englishwoman Cynthia Marley and they visit her family so he can ask for permission to marry her. She points out that her relatives are rather eccentric--and by the way, a cousin has just died. The remaining members of the clan: the sinister Reginal; Percival, an inventor who has recently discovered electricity, the phonograph, and several other handy items; Natalia, a macabre, vampire-like creature; Cornwallis, a hammy, dapper ex-actor; Grandfather, who lies bedridden upstairs; and also Muldoon, who is kept locked up for fear that he will harm someone. Several attempts are made on Jack's life, which makes him believe that the Marleys are a shade past eccentric. He becomes convinced that he is just in the way of one of the Marley's attempts to do away with the other Marleys, especially during his investigation of the vanishing Marleys, when he learns that the family fortune consists of one million dollars and one of the Marleys intends to end up with all of it. He wants to contact the police but there is no phone or car on the premises.