Teen skater Ken Park (nicknamed Krap Nek; his name spelled and pronounced backward) kills himself at a Visalia skate park; his death bookends the lives of four other young people who knew him: Shawn, the most conventional; Tate brims with psychotic rage; Claude is habitually harassed by his brutish father and coddled, rather uncomfortably, by his enormously pregnant mother; and Peaches looks after her devoutly religious father, but yearns for freedom. They're all rather tight, or so they claim.
Direction
Clark and Lachman's unflinching gaze refuses comfort.
Cinematography
Sickly California sunlight that exposes everything.
Acting
Ransone's Tate — barely controlled sociopathic energy.
Director
Larry Clark
James Ransone
Tate
Tiffany Limos
Peaches
Stephen Jasso
Claude
James Bullard
Shawn
Adam Chubbuck
Ken Park
Amanda Plummer
Claude's Mother
Wade Williams
Claude's Father
Maeve Quinlan
Rhonda
Richard Riehle
Murph
Bill Fagerbakke
Bob
Julio Oscar Mechoso
Peaches' Father
Patricia Place
Tate's Grandmother
Harrison Young
Tate's Grandfather
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Banned in Australia for years; classification board literally refused to rate it. Clark had to appeal personally.
The unsimulated sex scenes sparked debates about exploitation vs. authenticity that haunt indie cinema today. Harmony Korine wrote the script then disowned the final film.
US
