After soaring high and flaming out in Hollywood, Abe, a celebrated bodybuilder, returns home across the 405 to Venice Beach, where it all started. But Abe's beloved boardwalk feels different. There’s a nasty bite to the sea breeze, a slew of unexplained overdoses putting the gym rats on edge, strange supernatural sightings on the pier hinting at something primordial lurking beneath the surface of sun-dappled Venice. And Jay—his old lifting partner, his former roommate, the one person he truly abandoned in his pursuit of fame—has disappeared, leaving Alice, his ex, alone to take care of their infant son.

Throughout an increasingly desperate afternoon, Abe searches for his old friend, navigating an odyssey of local characters, and unearthing a subterranean war for the soul of this sparkling, seedy strip of waterfront, sitting on some of the most valuable real estate in the hemisphere.

Lyrical, kinetic, and paranoid, Muscle Beach is The Third Man meets Tangerine on the streets and back-alleys of Venice Beach—the last true vestige of the American carnival.