On a secluded family farm, a mother suffers a psychotic break due to postpartum depression, forcing the eldest son to protect his sibling from the mother they have always known and loved.

A suburban family traveling the backroads of the southeast in search of historic roadside attractions finds more than they bargained for when they happen upon a rustic sideshow museum that houses a dark secret.

The uncle of an executed murderess relates four stories of his hometown, Oldfield, to a reporter. In the first, an elderly man pursues a romance with a younger woman, even to the grave and beyond. In the second, a wounded man on the run from creditors is rescued by a backwoods hermit who holds the secret to eternal life. In the third, a glass-eating carny pays the ultimate price for looking for love on the outside. And in the fourth, a group of Civil War soldiers are held captive by a household of orphans with strange intentions for them.

In 1930s Alabama, nine young black men are accused of raping two white women. The judge in the case, unlike the rest of the town, comes to believe that the boys are innocent and, against all advice from his friends and family, sets them free, which turns the entire community against him.