A struggling actor is attacked by a zombie and can only get work on horror films, and finds that becoming undead has finally made him feel alive.   

SYNOPSIS:

Peter Knight is a struggling actor. He feels disconnected from his roles, cheating girlfriend and his life in general. His best friend Nicholas, an aspiring graphic novelist disrespected by his family of doctors, tells him to get his shit together. No one likes a sad sack and Nicholas is starting to lose patience with his friend’s misery.

One rainy night lightning strikes a pile of debris floating on the toxic Gowanus Canal. Connected to that debris are jumper cables and on the other end of those cables, way below the canal’s surface, is the rotting corpse of Aldo, a victim of a mob hit forty years earlier. The lightning’s electricity reanimates Aldo who rips his legs from the still-in-tact cement shoes.

Aldo surfaces and attacks Peter and his dog Millie. Millie is eaten but Peter only suffers the splashes of Aldo’s blood, saliva and mucus. He retains much of his humanity, but still, this viral infection is enough to bring upon changes to Peter’s body and face, and to his appetite. Now hungry for human flesh and no longer looking like the leading man of realistic films, Peter must seek out zombie movies where he can blend in with other background actors, who taste good and are rarely missed from a film set.

The zombie enthusiast Nicholas and Peter join other zombie extras on the set of Flesh for Fantasy. Among those extras are plenty of victims for Peter, and the beautiful Dawn. Dawn and Peter begin a romance but like all new relationships, this one has its obstacles: Peter is a zombie and Dawn hates zombies!

The film set has no shortage of colorful characters, including a director who thinks she’s too good for horror films, actors who think they’re too good for the director, and Sal, a background coordinator who has it out for Peter and Nicholas. Sal just happens to be the brother of Aldo, and he immediately recognizes Aldo’s cornicello around Peter’s neck, a souvenir (and now lucky charm) passed from Aldo to Peter during the zombie attack. But Sal is not the only one after the cornicello. The mob hitmen who originally killed Aldo have been searching for the cornicello for years.

During their time on set, Peter’s condition grows worse and Nicholas fears that untreated, Peter will lose all of his human qualities and soon go full zombie. Nicholas’ cures go from inconvenient to insane, including dropping Peter’s body temperature in order to “freeze the disease,” the fairy talesque true love’s kiss, and a legendary, mysterious antidote that no one actually knows if it exists or where in the world to find it. No matter the cure, Peter is unwilling to go along with Nicholas’ plans, because although undead, he has never felt more alive. For once in his life he feels connected, energetic, and happy. But not everyone is happy…

By the end of the film, Peter’s score of enemies grow and he has a parade of antagonists on his tail: Dawn, Sal, the Mafia, the police and Lyle the naked archer. Will Peter return to human? Does he want to? Or is he happier spending the rest of his undead life as a Zombie Extra?