Sling Blade is a 1996 American independent Southern Gothic drama film written, directed by and starring Billy Bob Thornton. Set in Arkansas, it is the story of intellectually challenged Karl Childers and the friendship he develops with a boy and his mother. Karl was released from a psychiatric hospital where he had grown up due to having killed his mother and her lover when he was 12 years old. It also stars Dwight Yoakam, J. T. Walsh, John Ritter, Lucas Black, Natalie Canerday, James Hampton, and Robert Duvall.