The short film tells a surrealist story of a Son's feelings of anger, sadness, and inadequacy after the return of his Dead Father.
The Dead Father is shot in black and white on 16mm film and features Maddin's usual use on the stylistic conventions of silent-era cinema.
[1] The Dead Father sends the Son on another errand, to take his little sister to school, but in his habitual forgetfulness he doesn't and she runs off, getting lost.
Finally, the Son returns home to find his mother coddling his frightened sister and is struck by the Dead Father for his irresponsibility.
The family continues to mourn and the Son discovers that his older sister's boyfriend, Cesar, has been sneaking in at night to sleep with her (due, perhaps, to the absence of the Dead Father).