When a young boy named Jake accidentally makes a new friend in an experiment gone wrong a troubled town is plunged into chaos. But with the creature rapidly evolving every day, Jake finds it increasingly difficult to keep his new pet secret. Jake's friends and new girl Abbie realize they are not the only ones interested in this strange, mischievous little dinosaur and soon discover that the only thing more mysterious than what it is, is who is looking for it.

In this moody black and white drama, very much in the mode of the American "western," but with its own film noir characteristics, a whole town is heaved out of its doldrums when a pair of mysterious strangers come visiting. In the beginning of the film, Angel is traveling with his friend Max on a ship to Honeyfield, a town on the coast of Australia. He is coming home to die. Instead, he dies on board the ship, willing his boots to Angel, and an unopened package to someone called "The Dead Man," in Honeyfield. Also on the ship is a man named Tatts, a far less pleasant personality. When Angel gets off to head into Honeyfield, Tatts decides to follow along unseen. The package, Angel was told, contains something its intended recipient has been looking for without knowing it. On finding the recipient, a mean-spirited old man who is more or less the boss and owner of the town, he learns that the package contains opium.