Badlands is one of the first literate examples of narrated cinema since the early days of Orson Welles and Abraham Polonsky. A teenage girl (Sissy Spacek) and a young garbage collector (Martin Sheen) take to the road, and wander across several states of America on a vengeful murder spree.
If a film can be defined by its influence, the status of Badlands as a cult classic is deserved. The template of two kids on the run has served any number of subsequent film-makers, who have gazed enviously on its elusive power. Its story is filtered through the feelings of Spacek's Holly, who views Kit's actions as hopelessly romantic; she is blinded by her adolescent crush on him, and the dislocation between her dreamy acquiescence and the horror of the couple's actions lends the film a unique tone, fluctuating between lyricism and jolting reality.
If a film can be defined by its influence, the status of Badlands as a cult classic is deserved. The template of two kids on the run has served any number of subsequent film-makers, who have gazed enviously on its elusive power. Its story is filtered through the feelings of Spacek's Holly, who views Kit's actions as hopelessly romantic; she is blinded by her adolescent crush on him, and the dislocation between her dreamy acquiescence and the horror of the couple's actions lends the film a unique tone, fluctuating between lyricism and jolting reality.