Summary

Frank Bannister is a psychic swindler with the perfect business partners. They work cheap ... they're dedicated ... and they're dead. Possessed with a genuine ability to communicate with the dearly departed, Bannister earns a stiff living by setting up "spirit clearance" scams with his trio of ghostly cronies. But Frank may not be the only one in the small town of Fairwater working the paranormal side of the street. A series of inexplicable deaths and bizarre occurrences suggests the presence of a malevolent poltergeist. With the suspicious finger of a zealous FBI agent pointing directly at him, and the woman he cares for in danger, Bannister attempts to unravel the supernatural crime spree by venturing into a realm where all fears are realized ... and true evil does not die. Frank Bannister is having a quiet candlelight dinner with the lovely Dr. Lucy Lynskey (Alvarado). It has the makings of a romantic evening-if Lucy's late husband would just stop interrupting. Ray Lynskey (Dobson) is dead but not gone. And he's not one bit happy about the situation. Bannister has been able to converse with such spirits, disgruntled or otherwise, since the trauma of his wife's death in a car accident five years ago. Unable to cope with her loss and relate to the society of the still-living, Frank finds solace in the company of three ghosts who have chosen to remain earth-bound. They do not accept death, just as Frank does not embrace life. One of the murder victims happens to be the aforementioned Ray Lynskey, a crude and boorish man whose sudden departure may have left everyone, certainly Frank, better off. Lynskev's widow, Lucy, a striking, intelligent doctor, is one of the few in town who sees something remarkable and endearing in Frank. She enlists his help in aiding a disturbed patient, Patricia Bradley (Dee Wallace Stone), who lives in fear of her austere mother (Julianna McCarthy) in a creepy manor. Patricia's dark past and involvement with a deranged boyfriend executed for murder, has left her imprisoned in a house inhabited by tormented memories. Bannister prefers to deal with painful memories in the company of his posse of poltergeists: The Judge (John Astin), an aged and weary gunslinger with less than deadly aim, Cyrus (Chi McBride), a true spirit of the 1970s, with a personality as loud as his clothes; and Stuart (Jim Fyfe), the bookish, quiet one. But Bannister and his misplaced ethereal entourage are about to confront something far more dangerous than fear of the unknown. Twenty-two people have dropped dead, with the only commonality being that a sequential number is carved on the victims' foreheads and Frank is always around before it happens. Bannister senses it's the work of a wicked supernatural entity; FBI agent Dammers (Combs) thinks otherwise. He believes the deaths are the manifestation of Frank's own powerfully destructive will, bent on making others suffer his own agony of grief and separation. Bewildered by the allegations, and determined to find the true reason for the murders, Frank Bannister crosses the ultimate barrier into a world where death does not destroy wickedness and nightmares become all too real.