31 Nights of Halloween Horror part 1 - The Devil's Candy

31 Nights of Halloween Horror part 1 - The Devil's Candy

The Devil’s Candy

79 mins.

Dir. Sean Byrne

2015/USA

Let’s kick off tonight’s Journey with a movie that has been getting a lot of interest lately and making a lot of top ten lists.  Not mine, unlike most people I was not a fan of this film and here’s why…

Like Heavy Metal? Like Horror? Like Candy?  The Devil’s Candy mixes all those things together.  Well the candy is more of a metaphor, but the sweet stuff is always used to lure us in.

An almost unrecognizable Ethan Embry plays a bearded long haired heavy metal listening painter who buys a beautiful home with his loving wife and his equally heavy metal loving preteen daughter Zooey, who he seems to be more on a friendship level with then a parenting level.  The reason a painter and a woman who works at a nail salon with one station wagon as their only means of transportation can afford such a house is because there was a tragedy in it as the realtor in entitled to disclose.  Seems a nice old lady fell down the stairs and died and her husband was so distraught, he could not live without her.  But we know better, we were not stuck in line for popcorn and missed the beginning of the movie. We watched the prologue so we know what really happened.  The old couple didn’t have an accident, their mentally unstable previously convicted child-murdering son, Ray was blasting his guitar in the middle of the night to drown out the voices in his head.  When Mom unplugged the guitar, and threatened to send him back to the hospital she met an untimely demise by Ray’s doing.

Once the Heavy Metal loving Hellman’s move into the house it isn’t long until Ethan Embry is starting to hear voices as well.  Who knows what they are telling him, can’t understand a thing, but when they speak they put him in a trance and he starts painting.  First painting is an inverted cross.  No big deal, that is pretty metal.  Second painting though he subconsciously paints random trapped looking children. It is not until he paints his own daughter into the picture screaming and surrounded by fire that we realize something is up.  A premonition? You betcha, but still pretty metal.  Anyway, they are freaked out, as he doesn’t recall painting any of this cause he is in the zone.  More voices and the painting continues to progress featuring a multi-eyed demon.  Horns up.  One night there is a knock on the door, guess who has come home, it’s Ray.  Since he murdered his parents he has been out wandering.  But the voices now told him he needs to add Ethan Embry’s metal loving daughter to his to murder list.

Daughter is in peril, voices are mumbling and you are wondering when something exciting is going to happen.  The Devil’s Candy really never gets up and running.  Ray seems to be aware of the voices and they tell him to do a specific thing, but Ethan never mentions hearing them and just goes into a painting trance.  So really what’s the point of them.  Is the house haunted? Is it built on a Satanic Indian burial ground? Does Heavy Metal really play any part in this movie other than breaking stereotypes and show that metalheads can be a tight knit loving family too?  Who knows and by the time you get to the end who cares.  You watch it and keep waiting for something to happen and by the time something does, it is all just a bunch of meh.  Here is a perfect analogy, “Hey there is this new Horror movie with heavy metal in it!”  “Cool, who do they play?”  “Metallica.”  “Meh.”  And that about sums it up boys and girls.  If I want to listen to metal, I am not listening to Metallica and if I want to watch horror, it is not going to be The Devil’s Candy.

The Devil’s Candy was written and directed by Sean Byrne.  This is his second film in six years since he did the acclaimed The Loved Ones, which was a far better and more entertaining film.  His sophomore attempt leaves much to be desired in comparison.  I highly recommend checking out The Loved Ones if you want to see a quality film and leave The Devil’s Candy in the penny aisle in the grocery store.