In a script he co-wrote with Paulo Campos, Campos deftly shifts focus between the characters, very few of them wholesome or morally pure. Religion, especially in small towns like Knockemstiff, Ohio, is a significant foundation of the community, yet it’s often a corruptive power. For some, religion grants delusions of grandeur that leads to murder. For others, it offers a false sense of security in hardship, or an authority to inflict abuse. For Arvin, religion has mostly dealt him a life of tragedy. This theme works as the undercurrent of a series of increasingly disturbing acts of violence.