| Director | Michael Damian, Roger Nygard |
|---|---|
| Genre | comedy film |
| Runtime | 89 min |
| Country | United States |
| Budget | $400,000 |
The film centers on Thane Furrows, who spends the day in his apartment in an unknown location in Texas, complaining about various subjects. These include flies, popsicles, junk mail, his boss's wife, his upstairs neighbor, smoking, and salesmen. He also philosophizes on topics such as the morality of eating humans and the sensibility of keeping pets.
Furrows holds a number of unusual philosophies. He desires his children's books to be instructive for the good of society, examples being How to Start the Family Car (in case "someone chokes on a chicken bone" and "there are no adults around") and Bye Bye Grandma, which he intends to help children accustom themselves to death. He refuses to keep pets, believing they would "turn on you" in a food shortage, and instead keeps a cardboard cutout of a dog named Pete.
Several minor annoyances perturb him throughout the day: a fly lands on his cereal at breakfast, which he inadvertently eats; an insurance salesman named Ray comes to the door, to which Furrows responds by feigning interest and, shortly after promising to take out several policies, slamming the door in Ray's face with the words "I'd rather be dead"; an automated survey about carpet cleaning calls him repeatedly; his boss's wife comes by to pick up a book he was writing, and he eventually tells her off. Following the fly incident, Furrows experiences a series of scares. When closing his eyes, he repeatedly sees a menacing face. He receives numerous messages, both by phone and mail, about "eight o'clock."
Furrows's only friend appears to be a man named Al, who visits in the afternoon. They eat cereal, and Al attempts to dissuade Thane from his cynicism. While Thane attacks the optimism of people like Al, he seems comforted by Al's sympathy over the visit of Melanie, the boss's wife. Later that night, Furrows loses an arm-wrestling match to his noisy upstairs neighbor, granting the neighbor the right to play metal music as loud as he wants, whenever he wants. Thane responds by cutting the neighbor's power to maintain peace. After a day of "messing around," Furrows receives a knock at the door at the dreaded "eight o'clock" and is greeted by a limo driver. When he enters the limo, the driver (Jim Carrey) reveals himself to be Death.
Death tells Furrows that he has met his quota of saying "I wish I were dead" and must die. Furrows complains about the absurdity of the rule until Death, unable to scare Furrows into compliance, returns him to his body. Furrows awakens with a frightened Al standing over him, trying to rouse him. The story concludes with the two going out to a restaurant, although Furrows insists on being served cereal, demonstrating a willingness to try some new things, but not all.
After the credits, a short epilogue depicts Death stopping the limo in a dark space and looking at the heavens. He claims that he simply couldn't tolerate Thane and had to return him to life. He adds that he is never coming back for Thane, implying that Thane may have accidentally become immortal.