Sonny Boy

Terminally weird indie film with Paul L. Smith playing Slue, a small town crime boss. David Carradine plays his transvestite (I think) squeeze, Pearl, while Brad Dourif and Sydney Lassick are his two henchmen, Weasel and Charlie P. Weasel kills a couple and steals their car, which he brings to Slue. He didn't realize, however, that the couple's baby was asleep in the back. Slue wants to feed the kid to the hogs, but Pearl sees him as the son he could never have. They raise him as a killer to be used against Slue's enemies. They also cut out his tongue as a birthday present?! When Sonny Boy gets loose, his actions threaten to turn the town against Slue.

I had wanted to see this one after reading about it in "Terror on Tape", and TCM gave me the chance when they aired it as part of their Underground lineup. As you can plainly see from the plot description, it's certainly offbeat. Sort of an allegory in disguise for the effects of child abuse, you might expect this to be a disturbing film. Not even close. Instead, it's just strange. Slue has an old canon, and in a wicked scene, he uses it to blow apart a nosy deputy. There are also some obvious parallels to Frankenstein towards the end. Had I not known it beforehand, I would have been shocked to see that this was released in '89. It felt like something straight out of the 70's. The main giveaway was the computer font which tells how much time had passed.

While I would hesitate to call "Sonny Boy" a good film, it's worth a look if only to say that you've seen it. For fans of bizarre cinema, there's enough of a novelty present to warrant at least one viewing. Personally, I'm still not 100% sure if Carradine was supposed to be playing a guy in drag or an actual woman.

I just lucked into seeing this in the 'something different' section of the video store and took it home, hoping it would live up to that promise. It did. You adventurous soul who is reading this, I envy you because as much as I intend on finding this movie and watching it until the tape wears through, you are going to be seeing it for the first time. If you have an open mind, this movie will blow it away. If you don't, stick with the mall movies, you'll hate this. This film has no category and plays by no rules, which explains the low rating here and the fact that it's practically unheard of. To put this in the category of David Lynch is an insult to this film because this is no 'I went to film school' art film. It has no pretensions and plays homage to no one, although I personally tasted a slight flavor of "Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia" in some of its humor. That too was a masterpiece that most audiences hissed at and called tasteless and offensive way back when. There's no doubt that there's something here to offend anyone who is jaded but I personally found the Christ/Frankenstein analogies extremely moving, and David Carradine is thus far the best Virgin Mary I've ever seen (I'm serious). One can read all sorts of stuff like that into this movie if they so desire. I liked the "Father, Son and Holy Ghost' quote in the middle of the film, and Paul L Smith's cartoonishly cruel yet fatherly image comfortably fits with my personal conceptions of God so I was happy to chose that route at times (anyone else see the sheriff as Pontius Pilate?). [Mel Gibson, eat your polyester heart out!!] This director, Robert Martin Carroll, has the most amazing gift for creating visuals to describe feelings. A red, ripe balloon lifting up into a turquoise sky for example, describes a first kiss as well as the shock that succeeds it, with dizzying precision [kudos to DP Roberto Pizzoli for capturing that balloon's ripeness - there's no other way to describe it!] The performances, as others here have mentioned, are superb. And the score is so pure and sincere that it took me nearly an hour before I realized that this film wasn't made thirty years ago. I don't use the word 'masterpiece' very often, and after seeing over 5,600 movies in my lifetime, the 'great' movies are becoming fewer and further between, so please excuse my unabashed need to scream from the rooftops, HALLELUJAH!

Let us now bow our heads and pray for a DVD release.

If you're expecting this to be just a cheap, ugly exploitation film, you may actually be surprised. Although it does border on the offensive, and Paul L. Smith plays (convincingly) one of the most repugnant characters you'll ever see, the film has enough originality and audacity to be preferable to many other formula horror outings. The script develops into a variation on the "Frankenstein" myth, and the terrific music score gives a poetic dimension to some scenes. Outstanding performance by the actor who plays Sonny Boy. (**)

This was a bizarre film, is one way of putting it. A con artist, played by Brad Dourif, kills a couple then steals their car taking it to his friend who deals in stolen items. The car ends up having a baby in the back of which the man wants to get rid of but his wife played by David Carradine (who wears make-up and several dresses throughout) wants to keep the baby. If that's not weird enough they keep him in a box and on his sixth birthday the man cuts the boys tongue off! He calls it getting the gift of silence. The depravity doesn't end there. As he grows up he is dragged behind cars and just constantly abused. The father wants to groom him to be his secret weapon. He later takes his son (now a man) to kill people he needs killed.

Definitely a weird and dark film. You hear a cobbled version of the deliverance theme so as not to infringe on copyrights all the way through the film. The ending gets dull but entertaining until then.

While watching this with a friend (in a general state of disbelief due to the surreal audacity of the flick), they looked over at me to exclaim that I had found "the impossible movie". This comment bluntly yet accurately summarizes in many ways what it is about this movie that cannot really be put into words. Any attempt to describe this movie would simply do it an injustice. The combination of elements; cinematography, music, actors, scenarios, etc. is nearly brilliant and the dark humored tone that dominates this film is disturbing, illuminating and hilarious all at once. Watching this film is definitely a love-it or hate-it proposition, but for those who appreciate the surreal, offbeat and macabre elements of cinema, this film is a motherlode. Just keep in mind that Psychotronic Film Guide ranks this as one of the top ten films of the '80's and the gentleman responsible for the screenplay (Graeme Whifler) created most of the early films and videos for that infamous band of San Francisco musical luminaries, The Residents. If these two facts mean anything to you, then I need to say no more...