Charlie Mackenzie (Mike Myers) is a love-shy 'poet' living in San Francisco, who frequents neighbourhood coffee houses reciting his tortured odes to unrequited love. Burned by a string of failed relationships, Mackenzie's fear of commitment has intensified into outrageous extremes of paranoia. When he finds himself falling for the sweet-faced butcher (Nancy Travis) at his local meat shop, he sees it as a final chance for love to overcome his painful cynicism. Feeling he has squelched his nagging fears, Mackenzie marries the woman. But his anxiety quickly manifests itself in the conviction that his betrothed is actually an infamous axe murderer whose antics are described in juicy detail in each week's issue of the Weekly World News. Myers also plays his own father, Stuart Mackenzie, a football-loving, Rod Stewart-singing Scotsman who repeatedly refers to Charlie's over-cranial younger brother William as 'Head'.