Movie Review: The Devil's Candy

The Devil's Candy *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Sean Byrne.

Written by: Sean Byrne. 

Starring: Ethan Embry (Jesse Hellman), Pruitt Taylor Vince (Ray Smilie), Shiri Appleby (Astrid Hellman), Kiara Glasco (Zooey Hellman), Oryan Landa (Deputy Hernandez).

 

The Loved Ones, director Sean Bryne’s 2009 debut film, is one of the best horror films of the 2000s that you’ve never heard of. I saw it at TIFF that year – one of those happy accidents where you have a hole in your schedule, and need to fill it with something, and you pick a horror film. That film was a demented film, about a teenage girl, who with the help of her father, kidnaps her crush, and forces him to attend her homemade prom with her. The film becomes bloody and disturbing, and wonderful. Clearly, that film didn’t find its audience in North America (it was an Australian film) – and so it took Bryne 6 years to make his follow-up – The Devil’s Candy – and another two years for that film to come to theaters in North America. It isn’t quite the demented delight that The Loved Ones was – but it certainly cemented Bryne’s position as a horror filmmaker to watch.

 

In the film, Ethan Embry plays Jesse – a 30-something year old tattooed metal head and a painter, who is married to Astrid (Shiri Appleby), and father to Zooey (Kiara Glasco). While he doesn’t look like the typical suburban father, he loves his daughter dearly – and she’s not quite old enough to have rejected him yet in a fit of teenage rebellion. The family have just moved into a new house – which normally, they would never be able to afford. The realtor though tells them why the house is cheap – two people died there recently. It’s not a big deal though – just an old woman who had an accident, and her husband who couldn’t handle being alone. The realtor doesn’t mention that couple’s son – Ray (Pruitt Taylor Vince), a mentally disturbed man, who killed a girl when he was much younger. Jesse and his family will meet Ray soon enough – he doesn’t seem to understand he doesn’t live in that house anymore.

 

Jesse continues his painting – but he starts to be haunted by more and more morbid images – images he doesn’t know the source of. These are the images of dead children – children at the moment of their violent deaths – and Jesse essentially goes into a trance, and cannot stop painting them. Of course, these images are related to Ray – who is getting images of his own in his head that tell him to do terrible things.

 

It must be said here that the premise of the film isn’t all that original, and is pretty far-fetched. What made the film work for me is Embry’s performance as Jesse – who is a father who is trying to do the right thing here. It isn’t a macho performance or an old school father type role, but something more modern – and sensitive – even as he is thrust into a role he doesn’t wholly understand. Great horror films are about more than blood and jump scares – two things that The Devil’s Candy avoids for the most part (there is a lot of disturbing imagery – yet Bryne and his camera often turn away before the actual violence – or don’t get there until it’s done). Horror films about parents and their fears, unsurprisingly, have found more meaning for me since I became a father – and The Devil’s Candy is a good one.

 

This helps to paper over some of the flaws in the film. Pruitt Taylor Vince is a fine actor in many ways, but I am tired of seeing him playing the mentally disturbed bad guy, no matter how well he does it. He seems almost superhuman at times here, as he just keeps on coming like he’s Michael Myers or something. I’m also not sure the final shot really works – it feels kind of cheap to be honest.

 

But while these are flaws, they don’t sink the film. While The Devil’s Candy doesn’t hit the heights of The Loved Ones, it’s still a good horror film – and still makes me interested in what Bryne does next.