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Toby (Oliver Robins, Poltergeist), a young boy obsessed with horror movies and literature, is gutted when his longtime neighbour Paulie moves out. In his place, an elderly fellow (Ralph Bellamy, Rosemary's Baby, Trading Places) moves in, who upon meeting Toby tells him that he's a vampire.
Toby, of course, doesn't believe him, but when later spies him lifting his car with one hand, he is certain that he does belong to the undead. The man, whose name is Emile Francis Bendictson, reassures him that he means him no harm, and that he is back in this place to die. He takes Toby out for a pizza, and they just seem to get along good.
Things get strange when everybody in the same town starts developing a strain of flu. Toby is another victim, just like everybody else, which doesn't stop mr. Bendictson to take him out for a little walk in the middle of the night. As they enter the cemetery, Bendictson shows Toby his own grave, clearly showing he's dead for the past 100 years or so. Bendictson explains that the undead can die themselves, and that they will all soon find out. Before he leaves, he shows Toby a pretty sight - he stirs the bushes around the gravestones, and they lit up with fireflies.
Back home, Toby is sitting in the couch with his family - all of them pretty sick. When Toby's mom receives the news from the neighbourhood everybody else is gravely ill, bad comes to worse - all of a sudden, everybody starts transforming into hideous monsters ! With their metamorphosis complete, the monsters head out to mr. Bendictson's house, who is clearly expecting them.
The next morning, police is at hand - mr. Bendictson has been brutally murdered, and everybody is in shock. Nobody realizes it was "them" who sealed old man's fate, and Toby is able to remember only one thing - the fireflies. He takes his dad to the cemetery to show him, but after a cold breeze passes by and Toby's dad sneezes, Toby is very startled...
Trivia:
When Toby's dad warns Toby to "keep watching the skies", he's quoting a line from Howard Hawks's sci-fi classic, The Thing from Another World.
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