Thanks to an auto accident, a parasitic alien manages to get into a hospital. It quickly moves from the crash victim into a candy striper. Among the patients at the hospital are some rather short high school basketball players. It is through them that we watch the events unfold. The infected, or inhabited, candy striper becomes predatory. She goes after men for sex and after women to spread. Infected women develop an incredible sweet tooth and devour anything sweet they can find. The horror then spreads. As the horror takes over more of the hospital and the CDC locks it down, the basketball players and a few friends do everything they can to try and get out of the hospital. But soon it becomes evident that the problem has spread too far. Now if they manage to escape it will only be to delay the inevitable if they cannot halt the spread of aliens before they get out and take over the whole world.
Life has its downs for James, living with his mom in Chicago at 39, an aging performer at Second City, eating and weighing too much. A woman he's been dating drops him, as does his agent, her brother. James turns down roles in local TV, roles that make him sad. Someone's remaking his favorite movie, "Marty," a role he'd love, but he doesn't even get an audition.
An alcoholic former horse-trainer perceives in a fifteen-year-old boy a unique gift of horsemanship and makes it possible for the boy to conceive his dream and pursue it.
