William H. Macy plays dual roles in this imaginative tale about an author who copes with a family tragedy by writing himself into the noirish dramas of his own novel, where he interacts with his main character, a hard-boiled investigator in 1938 Los Angeles.

On his drive home from a conference, a noted novelist (Tom Berenger) spontaneously buys a creepy painting at a yard sale. When the artwork begins to transform and become more menacing, he realizes he must destroy it before it kills him.