shawnblackman 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.

bregund My theory about films is this: only a few of them are really good, most of them are okay, and some of them are awful. So if you're going to see a film and you're hoping it will be good, the odds are stacked against you. Therefore you might as well watch something awful that you've never heard of. I'd never heard of Sonny Boy until I saw it on TCM Underground's schedule and I knew it would be just bad enough to enjoy.Here are some gems from this film:David Carradine in drag, bursting through a window with a gun in each hand.Numerous facial closeups of a girl with brown teeth (you won't want to be eating anything during this film)Strangely non-catchy chanting by the bloodthirsty mobA pyramid constructed of two-by-fours and tissue paperBrad Dourif's maniacal laughPaul Smith and Brad Dourif, together again after the highly successful "Dune"Monkey tongueConrad Janis staring off into spaceA musical score consisting entirely of banjos, guitars, and harmonicas, despite the southwest settingAn "ice cream" truckIf you watch a big-budget blockbuster film and go away feeling a little empty from all the overdone special effects, paper-thin plot, and reconstituted characters, watch a truly awful film such as Sonny Boy and be truly disappointed. Unlike the blockbuster, this one will stick with you for days.

jhall-4 Somebody compared Sonny Boy to the above. I think not. Maybe Wes Craven crossed with John Waters. An OK 70s cult film which inexplicably wandered into the 80s. One lapse in the screenplay. Sonny Boy's voice is taken from him by removing his tongue. Well, the tongue has nothing to do with production of the voice; it's the larynx that produces the voice; the tongue governs articulation of the sounds already produced. So he would always have had a voice, even if only grunts. I must admit I couldn't figure out who the heck David Carridine in the movie was until the final credits, which pairs the actors with the roles. I had to wind back and look at his face carefully to recognize him.

Zen Bones 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.