The Devil's Candy

It's not disturbing, not gory, not even scary... I can't understand why there are so many reviews claiming that this movie is good horror. It had so much potential and failed to deliver on all fronts. As a satan obsessed metal head, I thought this movie would be right up my ally, but no. It was cliché in all the worst ways, boring, and not creative. There were some opportunities for it to be really gruesome or disturbing that simply weren't taken. Felt like a PG-13 wannabe horror movie trying way too hard to be original. I think the only moment I enjoyed was when the four-horned goat appeared in the yard.

When i first saw the description of this movie, I thought "oh yeah, just another possession movie ... yawn, probably going to be a waste of my evening" ... but then I took a look at how many positive reviews It was getting and decided to give it a go ... and to no disappointment! This movie was well done, lots of original material, well crafted cinematic horror, good acting, good plot, actually reasonably scary and suspenseful... it's a solid horror movie. I recommend it strongly to other horror fans and trust me I don't give that recommendation out easily, there is plenty of 'horror crap' out there, but this is horror gold. Good job.

This movie is tense, disturbing, with some heavy imagery, gripping, and has great acting. It's not so much scary as it's disturbing - different things, the way I see it. Watching it was an intense experience. There's some lack of imagination in the underlying plot, in portraying evil and how it acts through people, but I guess that this would be asking too much of an already good movie. It lacks subtlety in key moments. Decisive scenes where the main theme of the movie are discussed are presented hurried way; they aren't properly explored. To be fair, this shouldn't be generalized, though. But I do feel the focus ended up being too much on the unfolding of the actions - a classic goal to goal rather aspect to aspect sort of thing.

The scarcity of good horror genre movies is really saddening, few artists are willing to delve into the nature of fascinating subjects such as evil and fear, but I'd say this movie is one of the good ones and I definitely recommend it.

The biggest problem modern horror films seem to have is making the audience care about their characters. Generally, they are so cliché, bland, dumb and unrealistic that within the first 10 minutes of the film no one cares any longer about their fate. So when I saw early on in 'The Devil's Candy' that the main characters were a family of hippy bogans, I'll admit I was worried for the sake of the film. I make no mistake about the fact that these are not people I can relate to in any way, and have had almost universally negative experiences with them in my life. On the contrary though, that turned out to be the strongest element to the film. I loved this family. They were charming, caring, relatable and down to Earth. I genuinely cared about their fate, and that is a large part of what made 'The Devil's Candy' a very fine horror film.

The second thing I loved about this film is that is never cheats. No scare is a false one. Nothing is suddenly revealed to be a dream sequence. No super-natural elements were required simply to make the story work. That is incredibly rare in the history of horror movies, let alone modern ones. Writer/director Sean Byrne needs to be absolutely commended on this. It is a brilliant effort on his part.

There really isn't a lot of negatives I can come up with for this film. The only thing holding it back from being a '10' was an unforgettable ending. Other than that it is basically flawless. Fantastic acting, a simple yet brilliant and effective story, genuine scares that never cheat and characters that are both likable and relatable. In an industry that is seemingly completely lost as to how to make a good horror film, 'The Devil's Candy' needs to be studied by everyone in Hollywood. It is a very good film.

A film about Satan and the devil, how classic. There's an undercurrent of pure dread to this flick. It works its way through the film's veins using music cues, whispering demonic voices and haunting images. Ethan Embry's performance is superbly crafted. A well-meaning dad, that rocks out to metal and paints pictures all day. He feels very real and not like a caricature. (He also gets ripped for this flick, I guess because he paints shirtless for a few scenes. It seems unnecessary, distracting and unfitting for his character but sure).

He begins to hear voices and see things and paint horrible stuff he doesn't understand. It's all very unnerving and convincing and seems to be leading to some inevitable catastrophe.

But the film lets up in the home stretch. It becomes a bit of a supernatural home invasion flick. The film seems undecided about whether there are real demons at play, which unfocuses the movie and makes it seem unsure of itself. The film isn't exactly about investigating the place demons have in the modern world either. It just knows they are inextricably linked with metal. A lot of the build-up seems for naught in the end and it's a real shame.

Byrne has great ideas, a wonderful grasp of character, atmosphere, tension, but maybe not enough to say?