The Herlihys are a working class family from Chicago whose three children take wildly divergent paths: Brian joins the Marines right out of High School and goes to Vietnam, Michael becomes involved in the civil rights movement and after campaigning for Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy becomes involved in radical politics, and Katie gets pregnant, moves to San Francisco and joins a hippie commune. Meanwhile, the Taylors are an African-American family living in the deep South. When Willie Taylor, a minister and civil rights organizer, is shot to death, his son Emmet moves to the city and eventually joins the Black Panthers, serving as a bodyguard for Fred Hampton.
Un grupo de campistas que celebra el Día de Conmemoración de los Caídos un fin de semana en un nuevo camping, encuentra el horror en vez de la felicidad cuando un ermitaño del valle comienza a asesinar y perseguir a los campistas por ensuciar y destruir su valle, que es su casa.
