In early January 1990, police in Kirtland, Ohio, a small town 20 miles northeast of Cleveland, were informed that a family of five had been murdered and buried in a barn four miles from the centre of town. Within days, investigators unearthed the bodies of Dennis and Cheryl Avery and their three young daughters.

The leading suspect was a man named Jeffrey Lundgren but the question of who to blame was more complicated than that. Lundgren was the leader of a religious cult that had splintered from the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a small American religion with historical links to the Mormons. Lundgren had convinced 13 followers that he was the last prophet of Jesus Christ and that the murders would help to usher in the Second Coming.

This documentary is a portrait of fanaticism, a glimpse into a group whipped into such a religious frenzy that they were willing to commit a mass murder in the name of God. Interviews include Jeffrey Lundgren's ex-wife, Alice, who conspired in the murders; two other followers; as well as videotaped interrogations from several more. Each one gives glimpses into a man who had been a failure in life, until he found in religion an intoxicating power, and finally, came to see himself as the deadly instrument of the divine.