Badlands is set in 1959, based loosely on real events (The story is fictional but is loosely based on the real-life murder spree of Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, in 1958 – Wikipedia). Which is interesting as another real life event made into a movie was Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, which took place the next year, 1959. The murder of the Kansas family the Clutter’s, by Richard Hickok and Perry Smith. You don’t think of 1950’s America as having psychopathic coldblooded killers, but they most certainly did.

Badlands came out in 1973. Sheen of course does a nice job as the son of a bitch ‘Kit‘. But neither the story or the movie is particularly noteworthy. I’ve never been into Tarantino type butchery on the big screen. But I have always been fascinated with Sissy Spacek. She would have been 23 when this was made in 1972. Her character ‘Holly’ was 15, so its a bit of a stretch there. Sissy would most likely never show up on anyone’s “most beautiful” lists (that came out wrong), but undoubtedly would appear on any man’s sexiest woman list. She wasn’t even photographed particularly well in Badlands, but she still comes through.

Much in the same way three years later in Carrie. Its hard to look ravishing when a bucket of pig’s blood is dumped on your head, but she pulls it off. Right before Badlands she did a couple of Waltons, I still remember those. She’s just very memorable. Something about a coquettish strawberry blonde with freckles. Born Christmas Day of 1949 in Quitman, Texas, she has that wonderful southern accent. That doesn’t hurt. 20 years old in 1969, she was just the quintessential slender blonde hippy girl. That stood out.

“The art director on Badlands was Jack Fisk, with whom she would marry in 1974 and ultimately collaborate on eight films. Sissy followed this landmark film with a star-making and Oscar nominated performance in Carrie (1976), in which she played a humiliated prom queen who goes postal with her telekinesis.” – IMDB

“Was Homecoming Queen of her Senior Class in High School.”

“When I started out in independent films in the early 70s, we did everything for the love of art. It wasn’t about money and stardom. That was what we were reacting against. You’d die before you’d be bought.”