An IMDb user calls A GIRL NAMED SOONER, "a beautiful story that will tug at your heart." The only scene from this T.V. movie that I recall, and vividly, is the one in which Sooner shows her tame pigeon to a group of kids who then throw gravel and pebbles at the pigeon till it's dead. Sorry, but I can't find an image of this scene online.
Another made-for-T.V. movie that traumatized me concerns a couple who moves to a rural town where the wife becomes involved in a fertility cult. I was fairly certain that ED BEGLEY JR. played the, uh, male praying mantis. If I remember correctly, the final scene shows the infertile out-of-towner husband blinded and with his tongue cut out. I can't find anything in BEGLEY JR.'s filmography that sounds anything like this movie. Does it ring a bell with you? It would've aired in the late ‘70s or possibly the early ‘80s.
Thanks for reminding me of BORN INNOCENT! The big kids on the school bus had to explain to us littl'uns what the deal was with the plunger.
UPDATE: NAME THAT TRAUMA SOLVED! Senski to the rescue again with THE DARK SECRET OF HARVEST HOME.
That's 1978's The Dark Secret of Harvest Home, based on a Thomas Tryon novel (Harvest Home).
Yes, the Dark Secret of Harvest Home…
When I heard Ed Begley Jr and preying mantises, I thought of Meet the Applegates (1990), about a family of giant intelligent mantis-like Amazonian creatures who assume human form to commit ecological terrorism but end up adopting all our nasty human habits.
Criminy, I could have gone the rest of my life without remembering that scene from Sooner. THNX.
Too funny. We were traumatized by the same movies! Between A Girl Named Sooner, and Bless the Beasts and the Children, I learned a sensitivity to animals, and eventually went vegan 🙂