Lawn Dogs on AllMovie

Low-life Trent Burns mows lawns for a living at the exclusive Camelot Gardens community outside Louisville Kentucky. The residents consider themselves upper crust and therefore feel it is their right to mistreat him and deride his kind. Trent hates them but needs the money and so continues his solitary duties. Ten-year-old Devon Stockard and her social-climbing parents Clare and Morton have just moved into the gated neighborhood. Her parents are so concerned with fitting in and putting on airs that they have little time for lonely Devon, who amuses herself with endless folktales of the terrifying forest-dwelling witch Baba Yaga. It was her beloved late uncle who introduced her to the Baba Yaga tales and though scary, it is perhaps better to feel fear than nothing at all. It is her love of those stories that leads Devon into the shadowy forest around her neighborhood. Once there she discovers a decidedly witchy-looking trailer in a glade and learns that it is the home of Trent. She wants to be friends; he wants nothing to do with her, but eventually her persistence and the fact that they both share near-death experiences leads to a tentative friendship. Just as the two begin to get closer, Devon's parents find out. Appalled that their daughter would associate with a person of his kind and not comprehending the innocence of the friendship, they intervene and set the stage for tragedy.