CANDY CORN / CERT: UNRATED / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: JOSH HASTY / STARRING: TONY TODD, COURTNEY GAINS, P.J. SOLES / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW (VOD)
One of the oddest things you’ll notice about Josh Hasty’s Candy Corn is that it seems caught between influences. Classic horror actors and a setting straight out of 80s pulp give the film a retro slasher vibe, but the surprise appearance of Sky Escobar can’t help but namecheck The Greasy Strangler, Jim Hosking’s ludicrous, nasty, camp, bonkers B-movie. Escobar’s style of acting, along with the stunted scripting, invokes a John Waters vibe that the film seems almost embarrassed about. Hasty wants to make a legit horror with hark-back moments, but his film is closeted camp.
Dodgy dialogue can’t sink a B-movie – it’s usually a prerequisite, to be honest – but uninspired plotting and kills really can. While Hasty’s latest promises to be a perfect Halloween treat (a carnival-centric slasher co-starring P.J. Soles and Tony Todd – what’s not to love?) it doesn’t quite come off as the seasonal schlock-fest you might hope for. Problem is, it’s just pretty uninspired.
The story is bog standard spooky-ooky revenge from beyond the grave, the characters are paper thin to the point of near-nonexistence, and the actors who are decent don’t get the screen time they deserve. Props to Hasty for using cult star Courtney Gains as the film’s moral compass and lead, though. The Children of the Corn star makes a charismatic and kindly lead, easily piling experience on a bare-minimum role where the younger cast simply can’t. Which is nice, since Soles and Todd essentially get glorified and uneventful cameos.
Hasty can’t be faulted in his intentions though. Much of Candy Corn is atmospheric, and he pulls off a few good scares. The mask design is pretty terrifying and all the murder scenes have an intensity to them, damaged only by the film’s continual use of CGI gore. Some of the kill concepts are great (there’s an excellent spine-ripping) but dodgy low-budget digital effects pop the bubble. A practical tongue-removal towards the finale proves the point so well that it undermines the rest of the film’s set pieces. Kudos to composer Michael Brooker (and co-composer Hasty) for executing an accomplished score which does a lot for invoking and maintaining the mood. It’s classic strings stuff, but gives a bit of emotional wallop to scenes almost upended by overworked editing or lame dialogue. If Hasty had leaned more into that lameness, the film could have been a quirky camp black comedy.
A superb performance from Courtney Gains and a surprisingly adept horror score keep Hasty’s Halloween horror above water, but there’s nothing new or particularly worthy in Candy Corn to warrant seeking it out.
