In this Sci-Fi anthology based on short stories by famous Sci-Fi and horror author Ray Bradbury, a man meets a strange woman and ends up having his whole body covered in tattoos or illustrations, as he calls them. There is no resolution to this, only an endless chase that continues. Shocked and driven to the point of madness himself, the young man attempts to crush the old hobo's skull with a rock, and then flees himself, having now become the target of the old hobo's pursuit. But suddenly, she is gone, vanished, and he is forever searching for his lost love, his muse, his devil woman who has cursed him to live like this and thrown him to the hard, cruel world. There is some suggestion that she has made a mark upon his soul by living with him for so long. By the time we get the entire tale of how the tattoos came to be, Rod has become romantically involved with the female tattoo artist. The older hobo claims he is searching for the woman who tattooed him to this extent, but it is unclear if she is real, a phantom, or an invention of his somewhat disturbed mind. There is no connecting thread here, save for the continuing framing story of the young man becoming entranced by the illustrations. The movie reuses the same three principal actors in every story vignette, making it a bizarre, confusing task to try to re-identify each as their role changes from tale to tale. Each one in turn plays out a science fiction tale, a morality play, some bitter, some sweet, some perplexing. He warns the young man not to stare too closely at them for too long, as they seem to come alive and portray tales.
The senior hobo(Rod Stieger) is covered from head to toe by tattoo illustrations that both enrich and curse him. A young hobo falls in with an experienced traveler who at times frightens and entices him. Just as the original book is an anthology of science fiction stories, the Illustrated Man movie has a framing device to connect the fragmented story vignettes that are told.
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