The matriarch (Gloria LeRoy) of a rural Texas family dies after tripping over the artificial legs of her married lover (Beau Bridges) and hitting her head in the middle of the night at a motel. Her dysfunctional family attempts to group together for the funeral. The film's tagline proclaims, "A Black Comedy About White Trash" and that about sums it up. Unfortunately not only is it not funny, it's downright amateurish. Talk about your stereotypes from drag queens to gun toting Texas rednecks to the mentally ill, they're all here. The writer and director Del Shores has dragged out every cliche (gay men come out the worst) he could think of and proudly displays them as if he actually discovered something fresh and profound. The acting ranges from horrendous like Kirk Geiger, who never made another film or TV appearance after this and one can see why, it's a career killer performance to two performances (Bonnie Bedelia, Beth Grant) that miraculously manage to overcome the ill advised material and hold our interest. And whose idea was it to cast Olivia Newton John as a tattooed and pierced ex-con fresh out of jail? Inexplicably the film has a cult reputation and even spawned a TV series, go figure. With Delta Burke, Newell Alexander and Leslie Jordan.
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