In an unidentified locale, art student and model Daisy leaves a club alone after having an argument with her beatnik boyfriend Max. Walking through the deserted streets, she stops to admire some gruesome paintings in a gallery window painted by artist Antonio Sordi, who coincidentally also comes by to look in on his "lost children." After a friendly conversation, they return to Sordi's studio in a room beneath an old bell tower, where Sordi convinces the young woman to pose for him. There, however, Sordi is possessed by the spirit of a long-dead ancestor and suddenly transforms into a vampiric monster who hacks the screaming Daisy to death with a cleaver, then lowers her mutilated corpse into a vat of boiling substance.