
In the car's glove box, Arvin finds a collection consisting of several rolls of film. When Carl starts his homicide ritual with Arvin, Arvin defends himself, killing Carl and Sandy with the Luger.

Arvin hitchhikes and gets picked up by Carl and Sandy. He spies on Preston, then confronts him at the church and kills him with the Luger. Arvin is told that she was pregnant following her autopsy, and immediately suspects that Preston was the father. As she stands on a bucket, she changes her mind and tries to remove the noose, but accidentally slips off the bucket and dies. Not wanting to bring shame to the family, Lenora prepares to hang herself. Lenora soon informs Preston of her pregnancy, who blames her for the incident and turns her away. Meanwhile, Preston takes advantage of Lenora's loneliness and rapes her. After noticing Lenora being repeatedly harassed by bullies at school, Arvin confronts and savagely beats them.

The church has a new preacher, Reverend Preston Teagarden, who also exhibits fanatical behavior. In 1965, Arvin is given his father's Luger pistol as a birthday present. Arvin, now orphaned, goes to live with his grandmother Emma, where he meets Lenora, who has been adopted as his stepsister. However, Charlotte dies of her illness, and Willard soon commits suicide. He prays to God and sacrifices the family dog, kneeling before a rustic cross he had erected in the woods behind his house. Willard believes he can influence God with fervent prayer to remove cancer from his wife's body. In 1957, Charlotte is diagnosed with cancer. Roy refuses to have sex with Sandy, and Carl shoots him dead. Their serial fetish homicide ritual involves picking up male hitchhikers, encouraging them to have sex with Sandy while Carl takes photographs, and then murdering them. Roy hitchhikes and gets picked up by a pair of married serial killers, Carl Henderson and his wife Sandy. Roy realizes his error and flees to return to his daughter. Believing that he has the ability to resurrect the dead, Roy stabs and kills Helen, but fails to see her revive. Roy has a severe allergic reaction to a spider bite, affecting his grip on reality.

In 1950, Helen Hatton marries the bizarre yet charismatic evangelical preacher Roy Laferty, who pours venomous spiders over his head in one sermon to demonstrate his faith in God. Willard and Charlotte marry and move to Knockemstiff, Ohio, where they have a child named Arvin. After the war, on his way home to Coal Creek, West Virginia, Willard passes through Meade, Ohio, where he meets Charlotte, a waitress at a diner. Willard ends Jones' agony by shooting him in the head. During World War II, while serving in the Solomon Islands, Marine Willard Russell finds the barely alive Gunnery Sergeant Miller Jones skinned and crucified by the Japanese.
