![]() Karl was instructed to "get rid of it," but when Karl detected movement inside the towel, he inspected it, discovering "a little ol' boy" that "wasn't no bigger than a squirrel." While recounting this story to Frank, Frank asks why Karl just didn't keep the baby, but Karl replies he had no way to care for a baby. Karl's parents performed an abortion, causing the baby to "come out too soon," and Karl was given a bloody towel wrapped around the baby, which survived the abortion. In a subsequent scene, he visits his father, who has become a mentally unbalanced hermit living in the dilapidated home where Karl grew up. Karl eventually reveals that he is haunted by the task given to him by his parents when he was six or eight years old to dispose of his premature, unwanted, newborn brother. For Karl, Frank becomes much like a younger brother. Karl quickly becomes a father figure to Frank, who misses his father and despises Doyle. In an early scene, Vaughan tells Karl that a gay man and a mentally challenged man face similar obstacles of intolerance and ridicule in small-town America. Despite Vaughan's concerns about Karl's history in the mental hospital, Linda allows him to move into her garage, which angers Linda's abusive alcoholic boyfriend, Doyle Hargraves. Eventually, Karl bonds with both Linda and Vaughan. Frank reveals that his father was killed - hit by a train - leaving him and his mother on their own - he later admits that he lied, and that his father committed suicide.įrank introduces Karl to his mother, Linda, as well as her gay friend, Vaughan Cunningham, the manager of the dollar store where she is employed. Karl shares with Frank some of the details of his past, including the killings. Around this time, he befriends 12-year-old Frank Wheatley. Having developed a knack for small engine repair during his childhood and his institutionalization, Karl lands a job at a small-engine repair shop in the small town where he was born and raised. When he discovered that his mother was a willing participant in the affair, he killed her also. Karl continues, saying that he killed the man because he thought he was raping his mother. I call it a kaiser blade," the line from which the film derives its name. Prior to his release, he is interviewed by a local college newspaper reporter, to whom he recounts the brutal murder of his mother and her boyfriend with a Kaiser blade - during which scene he notes to the reporter that, "Some folks call it a sling blade. Although thoroughly "institutionalized," Karl is deemed fit to be released into the outside world. Karl Childers is an intellectually disabled Arkansas man who has been in the custody of the state mental hospital since the age of 12 for having killed his mother and her lover. Karl Childers is the hero of the 1996 drama movie " Sling Blade" and the short film, " Some Folks Call It a Sling Blade". ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |