An impressionable teenage girl from a dead-end town, and her older greaser boyfriend, embark on a killing spree in the South Dakota Badlands.
It's the late 1950s. Mid-twenty-something Kit is a restless and unfocused young man with a James Dean vibe and swagger which he has heard mentioned about him more than once. Fifteen year old Holly has a somewhat cold relationship with her sign painter father, if only because she is the primary reminder of his wife, who died of pneumonia when Holly was a child. The two meet when Holly and her father move from Texas to the small town where Kit lives, Fort Dupree, South Dakota. They slowly fall in love, something about which she cannot tell her father because of their age difference and Kit coming from the wrong side of the tracks. When he tries to take Holly away with him, Kit, on an impulse, shoots her father dead. After letting the initial emotions of the situation settle down, Holly decides voluntarily to go with Kit, they trying to make it look like they committed suicide in a house fire. But they soon learn that their plan did not work, there being a bounty on their heads. As such, Kit continues his murderous ways in order to protect the life he wants to eke out with Holly. She, on the other hand, wants to support Kit, especially as he begins to feel more and more trapped, but she may only be able to endure what looks increasingly to be a battle they cannot win as a couple. Through it all, they openly and privately muse about their philosophies on their life considering their current circumstance.—Huggo
Holly is a teenager who lives with her sign painter father in a small Midwestern town. She begins spending time with the much older Kit, a James Dean lookalike who seems to go from job to job and can't quite settle down. Not surprisingly, her father objects to their seeing one another and when they have an argument, Kit kills him. Thus begins a violent road trip where the two try to find a bit of happiness. Their notoriety bring out bounty hunters but it doesn't stop them from continuing their killing spree. This film is loosely based on true events from 1957-58.—garykmcd
Kit Carruthers, a young garbage collector and his girlfriend Holly Sargis from Fort Dupree, South Dakota, are on the run after killing Holly's father who disagreed with their relationship. On their way towards the Badlands of Montana they leave a trail of dispassionate and seemingly random murders. A very intriguing narrative without judgements, and lacking the usually sensational approach of this genre. Very good acting and directing, and beautiful photography. The script was based upon the true story of the Charles Starkweather and Caril-Ann Fugate murders in 1958.—Theo de Grood <[email protected]>
In Fort Dupre, South Dakota, in 1959, Kit Carruthers, a twenty-five-year-old garbageman, starts courting fifteen-year-old Holly Sargis. Holly, who reads pop music and movie magazines, is infatuated with Kit. She thinks he looks like actor James Dean. But her widower father, a sign painter, shoots her dog when he finds out she's been seeing Kit, and forbids him to come near her. While Holly watches with mixed emotions, Kit kills her father with a pistol. They burn down the house and take off on a killing spree throughout the Midwest.—filmfactsman
Set in the late 1950s outside a small town of Fort Dupree, South Dakota, 15-year-old Holly Sargis (Sissy Spacek), is a teenage girl living with her sign painter father (Warren Oates), although their relationship has been strained since her mother died of pneumonia some years earlier. One day Holly meets the 25-year-old garbage collector Kit Carruthers (Martin Sheen). Kit is a young, troubled greaser, who resembles James Dean, an actor Holly admires due to her reading pop music and movie magazines. Kit charms Holly, and she slowly falls in love with him. Holly's narration, describing her adventures with Kit in romantic clichés, is juxtaposed with the gradual revelations of Kit's increasingly antisocial and violent behavior.
Holly's stern father disapproves of Holly and Kit's relationship, and shoots her dog in cold blood as a punishment for spending time with him. Kit then comes to Holly's house and, after hearing what Holly's father did, shoots her abusive father dead with a pistol. The couple fakes suicide by burning down the house and go on the run together, making their way towards the badlands of Montana.
Kit and Holly build a tree house in a remote area and live there happily for a few weeks, fishing and stealing chickens for food, but are eventually discovered by bounty hunters. Kit shoots the three bounty hunters dead, and the couple flees again. They next seek shelter with Kit's friend Cato (Ramon Bieri), but when Cato attempts to deceive them and go for help, Kit shoots him; he also shoots a teenage couple who arrive to visit Cato shortly thereafter.
An interstate APB is now listed across the USA Midwest as Kit and Holly are hunted by law enforcement. They stop at a rich man's mansion and take supplies, clothing, and his Cadillac, but spare the lives of the man and his housemaid.
By this time, as the two fugitives drive across the so-called "badlands" of Montana, Holly has tired of Kit and no longer pays attention to him, preferring to spend her time as she narrates: "spelling out entire sentences on the off of my mouth". They continue to drive on hoping to get to Canada where Kit tells Holly about wanting to join the Mounties.
When they stop for at an oil rig, a police helicopter swoops toward them from above. Kit kills a policeman in the hovering helicopter and rides off in the Cadillac. Holly, who refuses to go with him anymore, turns herself in. A sheriff and his deputy chase Kit at high speeds across the dusty roads. Kit gets away. Kit then stops his car, makes a stone monument of himself and on that spot allows himself to be captured. The deputy tells the sheriff, "He's no bigger then I am" about the now-legendary prisoner.
At a local military base where Kit is now confined, he is regarded as a celebrity by soldiers, policemen and reporters. It is here that Kit is reunited with Holly who is also in custody. He tells her, "it's too bad about your dad. We're going to have to sit down and talk about that sometime."
In the final scene, Kit and Holly are flown away on a military plane to stand trial for the murders and robberies. A text at the end states that Kit was tried, convicted and executed the following year for his crimes, while Holly (being a minor) only received probation and later married the son of the lawyer who defended her.
