Jim Corrigan (Gary Cole) is a private detective investigating a murder mystery. Secretly, he's the Spectre, a phantom of vengeance, seeking to bring justice to those guilty of crimes.
This short contains examples of:
- The '70s: When the short takes place.
- Asshole Victim: Foster Brenner, as it would suggest. His own daughter planned his whole demise simply because he refused to allow her a job working on his pictures, yet he turned her away every time. Also, the police force seems very dismissive of his own death, as they never put in any real work into simple questioning over their most likely suspects or check all the surveillance cameras.
- Big Bad: Aimee Brenner masterminded the murder.
- Car Fu: The Spectre uses a car to crush one of his targets.
- Corrupted Character Copy: Aimee Brenner is one to Gwendolyn Sterling; like Gwen, Aimee has a mostly one-sided relationship with Jim Corrigan, and her rich father was killed by a time bomb beneath the diving board during his morning swim. But where Gwen was innocent, Aimee murdered her father.
- Da Chief: The Police Captain, whose sole scene is lecturing Corrigan on his bad reputation.
- Dead All Along: Jim Corrigan is revealed to have been a ghost all along when Aimee's bullets phase through him.
- Death Glare: The Spectre's default expression is a cold stare into the soul.
- Death of a Thousand Cuts: The Spectre traps Aimee in a tornado of 100 dollar bills and makes them both completely rigid and razor sharp. She quickly dies in a bloody mess.
- Disposable Love Interest: Aimee; however, she is guilty.
- Genre Throwback: To 60s/70s style horror like Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist and detective/crime movies like Dirty Harry.
- Good Is Not Nice: Rather than aid the police investigation, The Spectre executes the criminals.
- Greed: The motivation for all the villains. They conspired to make money then screwed each other over to keep more for themselves. One that was completely cut out of the deal killed for it.
- Green and Mean: The Spectre has a Sickly Green Glow to emphasis his otherworldly dread.
- Hollywood California: The setting takes place in Hollywood, as the closing narration notes it's a place that brings out the worst in people.
- Intangibility: After killing Aimee, Jim walks away from the scene of the crime, invisible and intangible, straight through the incoming police officers, and drives off in his equally intangible car.
- Hired to Hunt Yourself: Corrigan's boss orders him to go find whoever killed their prime suspects. Naturally, it was Jim as The Spectre.
- In the Hood: The Spectre's trademark green hood is the most identifiable part to him.
- Paper Master: Temporarily, as seen under Death of a Thousand Cuts.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: The Spectre's M.O. Execute the guilty.
- Pet the Dog: Despite his nasty reputation, Brenner's butler seemed to be the only person the man ever respected during his lifetime.
- Police Are Useless: The whole reason why The Spectre is involved is because the police force failed to catch some small time criminals.
- Protagonist Title: The Spectre.
- Retraux: Visual effects are used to suggest an old movie.
- Secret Test of Character: It's strongly hinted that Jim Corrigan was testing his ex-girlfriend Aimee during their alone time together to see if she was truly an innocent victim like she claimed or truly undeniably evil the entire time. Ultimately, she shows her true colors when she attempts to murder the detective to cover her crimes.
- Shooting Superman: Aimee fires several shots into Jim and they go straight through him. Then she throws the gun at him and it goes through him as well.
- Shout-Out:
- Some of the puppets resemble Nosferatu and the possessed girl.
- The first target, a special effects artist, is killed by a giant King Kong puppet.
- The second is killed by his own car, driving on its own, after it rebuilt itself from a crash.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: He also bears a striking resemblance to Tom Savini.
- Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: One of the homicide detectives has a petty rivalry with Jim.
- Vehicular Assault: The Spectre possesses a target's car and drops it nose down on him.
- Who Murdered the Asshole?: Likely another reason why Brenner's murderers can slip beneath the cracks from the police investigation is the heavy implication that the man has made so many enemies in Hollywood by either refusing to hire or firing them, with any number of them (including his own daughter) wanting him dead.