[4][5] It stars Leslie Easterbrook as Maggie, a mentally disturbed mother of four who begins abusing her children based on her own twisted interpretations of the Bible.

[6] Hours after his daughter Carla's sixteenth birthday, Hank attempts to run off in the middle of the night, but is caught by his mentally unstable wife, Maggie.

Maggie subsequently becomes a shut-in and descends into alcoholism and religious mania, spending most of her time obsessing over Pastor Jon Stackwell, an unscrupulous local televangelist nicknamed the "Cowboy Prophet."

When they run out of money, Maggie coerces her son Bill into becoming a day laborer, and starts pimping Carla out to a man named Randy.

Maggie catches Carla, brings her home, and threatens her other children into bludgeoning their sister with a wooden paddle before locking her in a closet, where she is left to die.