Charles Condomine, a successful novelist has arranged for an eccentric medium, Madame Arcati, to conduct a séance after dinner, in hopes of learning about the occult for a story he is writing. She inadvertently attracts the ghost of his first wife Elvira, who only Charles can see or hear. Ruth, his second wife, cannot. The ghostly Elvira makes continued, and increasingly desperate efforts to disrupt Charles’ current marriage in hopes he too will pass over. But she only succeeds in sabotaging his car, killing Ruth instead of him, who then joins Elvira in the spirit world. With his house full of ghosts, Charles calls Madame Arcati back to exorcise both the blithe spirits. But, alas, it only gets worse!