Demented 'Ma' Barker (Shelley Winters) leads her emotionally damaged sons (including a young Robert De Niro) on a murderous, cross-country rampage. As the body count escalates, the twisted, dysfunctional family begins to implode and disaster becomes inevitable. Capitalising on an outstanding central turn from Winters, Corman evokes the Depression era vividly, capturing some unforgettably perverse performances and conducting proceedings to a brutal, bloody crescendo that rivals Peckinpah’s finest.