Atascadero, (Spanish for Deep Mud) in the early 70s boasts a drive-in theater and a Burger Queen where teens gather on Saturday nights. Lovers head up to Lake Success, and gas is $0.32 a gallon at the Shell station—the one with the ‘S’ knocked out by vandals. Nothing ever happens in Deep Mud, until someone straps Mayor Suggs to a skyrocket during the Fourth of July fireworks extravaganza, and he explodes all over the townsfolk.

Soon after, a popular family physician resurrects his dead wife, daughter, and several others with mixed results. A failed high school baseball pitcher is gifted with a 95 MPH fastball by the spirit of a murdered child, someone has freed the animals from Chaffey Zoo—including a Bengal tiger—and a stalker is going around in a ‘Tricky Dicky’ mask attacking people with a pair of pliers.

Only Ricardo Meneses, teenage son of Mexican immigrants, can save Deep Mud. He possesses the ‘cursed jewel,’ which he must return to the grave.