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. (**)

Pretty sick movie. Small time crook Slue (Paul L. Smith) and his girlfriend Pearl (David Carradine in drag--seriously!) inadvertently get a stolen car with a baby in the back. Pearl wants to keep the kid against the objections of Slue. Slue treats the boy named Sonny Boy like an animal. He cuts off his tongue when he is still a child, drags him around with a chain, forces him to live in a steel shack. By the time Sonny Boy is 17 (played by Michael Boston under the name Michael Griffin) he's little more than an animal and does anything his father asks...even murder. But Sonny Boy realizes there has to be something more than this life.

Sick, disturbing, no budget film. When it has David Carradine playing a woman in drag you KNOW this isn't a normal film! This was made on a VERY low budget and it shows. The sets are tacky and the sound is frequently inaudible. The story doesn't have much of a plot--just seeing how Sonny Boy was bought up and seeing the poor man trying to cope with his environment. To make it worse Boston's performance as Sonny is just fantastic. You can see the confusion, hurt and anger in the poor man's face. You really FEEL for him so when he's attacked or forced to kill it's just heart-breaking. Also Carradine in drag is--interesting. He's in drag the entire movie and there isn't any real point to it that I could see. Still he WAS very good. Also Brad Dourif plays another psycho role and Alexander Powers is very good in the small part of Rose. It would be easy for me to dismiss this film as a piece of utter repulsive garbage--but the acting by Boston and some nice directing makes it too hard to just ignore. I'm sure the filmmakers HAD a point--I'm just not sure what it was! A 5.

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.