Similarly, although MacLachlan has written the sort of kitchen-sink drug drama that dates back to the 1950s and A Hatful of Rain, he brings an unsettling new chemistry to the formula. The Dead Eye Boy, which is set in the Piedmont region of North Carolina, has stale stretches and annoying elements of strain in its structure. It transforms what might have been an animated case history into a far fresher study of irrevocably warped impulses. The dynamic of Dead Eye at first appears to be that of people fighting the good and futile fight against drug dependency and the social forces that give rise to it. Fortunately for us, MacLachlan is more interested in his characters' attendant struggles against the urges to hurt, to destroy.
Brutality runs like a wire thread through their daily domestic fabric.
Soren feeds a stray kitten and then dashes it against a wall. Shirley, in a tickling match with Soren, suddenly hits him hard across the face. Billy, while teaching Soren how to drive, waves an instructive finger at the boy, who bites it to the bone. Billy, played with a touching, honor-bound bewilderment by Murphy, is more in control of his actions. But you can sense the clamoring demons within.