"The Illustrated Family Doctor" is a dark comedy, that centres on the story of Gary Kelp, a young man who condenses reference books for a company called the Info Digest. The film begins with the death of Gary's, and with Gary having to start work on condensing a home medical journal called The Illustrated Family Doctor. The deeper Gary gets into condensing the journal, the more he starts to question his job, his life and everything around him. Then, mysteriously, he begins to take on the symptoms from the book and slowly his life starts to fall apart around him in comically tragic ways.