The 1958 film "Terror from the Year 5000" is about a group of scientists in Florida who develop a "time machine" and begin trading things with people living in the year 5000. The future people are survivors of a nuclear war and an unnamed woman from the future arrives in the present with some plans of her own. Before the woman appears, the future people send a coin to the scientists. The coin appears to be blank on one side and has a Greek inscription on the other.

A prologue talks about scientific accomplishments. In a rural Florida island laboratory two men are working on their time machine.

Professor Howard Erling and his assistant Victor are using the machine to trade small objects with people living in the year 5000. They receive a statue of a woman which is sent to a New York scientist, Dr. Robert Hedges.

Robert is intrigued by the statue after determining that it was manufactured in the future. He also learns that the statue is radioactive. He arrives at the professor's laboratory and meets the professor's daughter Claire.

The men send a Greek letter fraternity emblem into the future and receive a coin.

Flashes of light accompany the things sent from the future.

The coin appears to be blank and Robert turns the coin over.

The coin has the Greek inscription "ΣΩΣΕ ΜΑΕ" which means "SAVE US". Victor decides to run the machine while the others have gone to the nearby town. A woman appears in the machine, claws Victor, and leaves. The others return to the laboratory and find Victor wounded. A medical doctor tells them that Victor needs rest and requests that a nurse be sent to the island. The "Future Woman" attacks the nurse, puts on her uniform, and arrives at the house.

The nurse meets her patient Victor and talks to him. She explains that the people living in the year 5000 are survivors of a nuclear war and that many are mutants due to atomic radiation. She wants Victor to accompany her back home because he has good genes. Victor and the woman go to the lab followed by Claire, Robert, and the professor.

Claire and the woman get into a fight and the woman loses her face mask revealing a mutated face. There is an explosion which kills Victor and the woman.

They decide that the best thing to do is to work to prevent a nuclear war.

Ward Costello as Dr. Robert Hedges
Joyce Holden as Claire Erling
Frederic Downs as Prof. Howard Erling
John Stratton as Victor
Salome Jens as the Future Woman
Director: Robert J. Gurney Jr.
Writers: Robert J. Gurney Jr., Henry Slesar