While attending the funeral of his father, Melvin Devereux meets a young woman who addresses him by name, although he cannot remember having met her before.

After checking into a room and getting ready in the bathroom, Devereux discovers that she is gone, leaving behind a message written on a mirror in red lipstick which says that the time is not yet right.

Turning off onto more treacherous country roads, Devereux nearly gets stranded when his car gets stuck in muddy terrain, and he barely negotiates a rickety wooden bridge.

The folded ribbon adorning the casket seen inside the hearse bears a name similar to Devereux's own.

Confused and frightened, he follows the hearse to a church where an all-black congregation is mourning at another funeral procession.

He finds his doppelganger lying dead in a casket and tries to touch the corpse, which disappears beneath his outreached hand.

His wristwatch stops at 7:29 PM, the same time as a car crash had appeared to kill his father.

[1] Fulci recalled that Massaccesi encouraged him to go to New Orleans and to bring his daughter with him to assist on the film and save money on production.

[2] It was released on video to Spanish-speaking countries as El enigma de la muerte.

[3][page needed] Allmovie opined that the film lacks "both the energy and invention of [Fulci's] more familiar work.

"[4] In a 1997 interview, Joe D'Amato said he did not understand why the film was a commercial failure as he believed it was very good and he had even invested much money in the jazz soundtrack.