Patty Myers is a young woman who considers herself a Christian because she occasionally reads her Bible and goes to a theologically liberal church regularly, although her pastor is actually an
unbeliever. She refuses to believe the warnings of her friends and family that she will go through the
Great Tribulation if she does not accept Jesus as her Savior. One morning she awakens to find that her husband – a
born-again Christian – and millions of others have suddenly disappeared. Gradually, Patty realizes that the
rapture has happened. The
United Nations establishes an emergency government system called the United Nations Imperium of Total Emergency (UNITE), and those who do not receive the
mark of the beast identifying them with UNITE are arrested. Patty is conflicted: she refuses to trust Jesus as her Savior, but also refuses to take the mark. She desperately tries to avoid the law and the mark but is captured by UNITE. She escapes but is cornered by UNITE on top of a dam and falls to her death. Patty then awakens in bed and realizes that all she had experienced was only a dream. Her relief is short-lived when the radio announces that millions of people have disappeared. Horrified, Patty frantically searches for her husband only to find him missing too. Traumatized and distraught, Patty realizes that the rapture has indeed occurred and that she has been left behind.
A Distant Thunder tells Patty's story in a
flashback which itself includes flashbacks. It begins with Patty awaiting her execution, and after Christians also awaiting execution ask her how she got there, she begins to tell her story and a flashback commences. It begins where the previous film left off, with Patty awakening from her dream to realize that the rapture has actually occurred. The film ends dramatically with Patty witnessing her friend Wenda being executed and arguing with Wenda's younger sister Sandy (who, along with Jerry and Diane, urges Patty to take the mark) who betrayed them—and being prepped for her own execution. The third film,
Image of the Beast, begins with Patty being forced by UNITE soldiers to decide to take the mark or to be publicly executed by
guillotine. The soldiers strap her down to the guillotine, speechless and in shock, lying face-up. A sudden storm and earthquake occur, and the soldiers and others nearby run for safety, leaving Patty strapped to the guillotine. She cries, "I want the mark!", but nobody is nearby to hear or unstrap her. Alone, she attempts to unstrap herself, but the earthquake causes the hook holding up the guillotine blade to slip, and she dies. The film then turns to a new story—that of David, Leslie, and Kathy. Leslie was with Patty at the guillotine, waiting her turn, when she escaped because of the earthquake. She runs, goes down into an underground room, and meets David there and falls in love with him. David's plan seems to be to develop a counterfeit mark so that a person can buy and sell without using the actual Beast's mark. The fourth film,
The Prodigal Planet, involves life after a
nuclear war, in which
mutants roam the Earth. David continues with his plan to destroy the master computer of the Beast by injecting a destructive code into it, which is in fact the hymn
Onward, Christian Soldiers. The story is presented with action scenes interspersed with long conversations. A fifth installment,
The Battle of Armageddon, was planned even with a finished script, but never finished due to financial reasons as confirmed by actor Thom Rachford in an interview conducted by his grandson in 2023. ==Filming==