科學家們在一個小鎮的供水系統中下毒，把居民變成殺人狂魔，他們互相殘殺，任何人都能通過。

　　前傘兵軍官朱里安?塔維尼（Maurice Ronet 飾）退役后在一家軍火公司上班，期間他和老板西蒙?卡瑞拉（Jean Wall 飾）的妻子弗洛倫絲（Jeanne Moreau 飾）陷入熱戀。為了掃清障礙，他和情婦制定了一條看似天衣無縫的謀殺計劃。計劃起初進展順利，但在刺殺之后卻因細微的差錯偏離當初的設想，朱里安更被困在大樓的電梯之中。　　所謂禍不單行，一對青年男女偷走了朱里安的車，事態開始朝著混亂的方向發展……　　本片為左岸派元老路易?馬勒的長片處女作，榮獲1957年路易?德呂克獎

　　Two friends work as cleaners whose jobs are to clean homes and places where people have died or dead bodies are found. One day, they are tasked with cleaning a house where there were three dead bodies inside. Their job is to clean the corpses that have rotted. When they arrived there, they found that there are strange things happening and then they discover a strange book.

一份不祥的求助信被傳到了20世紀80年代的一家郵局里，將一名死信調查員與一名被綁架的鍵盤技術員聯系起來。