New York artist Nicholas Hood paints graphic depictions of violent death that are unique, unsettling and . . . unsalable.  Crushed by his sense of failure, he begins to see suicide as his only way out.
 

But at the lowest depths of his despair, the artist meets Bellisle, a hideously deformed dwarf with bizarre precognitive powers. The strange little man points Hood toward grisly scenes of urban horror—offering the painter powerful inspiration for his nightmare visions. Hood becomes more and more successful, but at a terrible price.