Avis Metacritic

With Candy Land, Swab has delivered a historic flashpoint in the darker side of the film universe. It is a supernova of seediness. The flick is the true bastion of this under-utilized subgenre.

Watching Candy Land is a lot like eating beef jerky from a truck stop. In both cases, you might find yourself thinking, “if someone told me this was made in 1973, I’d believe them.” Yet both experiences can end up being enjoyable despite leaving you with an overwhelming desire to shower.

It’s possible Swab made this film just to tell a story about the more compassionate side of prostitution. If so, the movie’s guilty-pleasure thrills are just a bonus.

Written and directed by John Swab, Candy Land is standard grindhouse fare — more serious and less conceptually adventurous than its recent counterparts, Ti West’s “X” and “Pearl” — though not without its fair share of pleasurable nastiness.