Here was a so-what film full of miserable cretins who deserved every bit of grief their actions caused them. Set for some useless reason in the mid-Eighties in yet another white trash Texas town, “Kern” begins with Sandra and her fiance getting busted for selling drugs. That the raid is broadcast on a COPS-like TV show, adds greatly to the humiliation of their respective families. I guess they didn’t have that fuzzy face-blotter thingee back in those days.
In any event, kicked out by her prospective mother-in-law, Sandra returns home to the hero’s welcome given her by her indescribably annoying sister, Amanda. That night, her fiance’s mom kills herself, leaving Sandra to scrape up the money for both her boyfriend’s bail and the funeral. She’s able to gather enough money to get her boyfriend out of jail, but the funeral plans get put on hold until she can raise some more scratch. That’s when Amanda cooks up a boneheaded scheme to rob a liquor store. Unfortunately for all concerned, her fiance beats her to the punch. Not aware of the robber’s identity, only of the fact that he’s making off with money she desperately needs, Sandra plugs him in the back, setting in motion a swirl of events that can only spiral downwards into an ever-deepening white trash cesspool.
With over-the-top acting and bad 80’s music, “Bury Me In Kern County” features a beyond redemption family that only Jerry Springer could love.
Kern County is in California, not Texas…