Bad Candy (2020) Review

It’s clear to see that Scott B Hansen and Desiree Connell love Halloween. Co-directing Bad Candy and co-scripting it from a short story by Thacker Hoffman their anthology horror is not only set on the devilish day but drips with deliciously deadly decorations, creepy costumes and lots of big bad things that go bump in the night.

Cantering around the All Hallows Eve show on Psychotronic 66.6 FM presented by DJ Chilly Billy (Slipknot’s Corey Taylor) and his producer Paul (Gremlins Zach Galligan) we are treated to a series of tall and terrifying tales told by Billy and relating to the population of New Salem where the film is set.

Opening with a supernatural short about a girl whose disturbing drawings come to life to reap revenge on her abusive step dad we also meet the warped clown character named Bad Candy who is summoned in one of her pictures and haunts the rest of the movie, popping up at the worst possible time for the victims in each small but shocking story.

The first person to get a wicked trick played on them is a treat stealing child who trashes people’s pumpkins and takes too many sweets resulting in the creepy clown fittingly turning this bratty bat dressed boy into a tiny Halloween decoration.

We then step straight into urban legend territory where we see a spiteful old man carefully putting razor blades in cupcakes and chocolates echoing the panic that overran the 1980’s in America and nearly resulted in Halloween being banned.

The theme of candy carries on to a costume party where drug dealer Charlie (House of Manson star Ryan Kiser) is selling sweet treats of a very different kind to the masses of hedonistic revellers. Meeting many of the characters that will go on to feature in the rest of the films vicious vignettes Charlie has a terrifying encounter in a disgusting public toilet when a demon mask wearing psycho starts stalking him.

From here we spin off into a sick scene of necrophilia as one of the dealer’s customers Abbie (Haley Leary) ingests something she bought at the spooky shindig and proceeds to get a bit too friendly with one of the corpses back at her job in the morgue. Tripping out in a psychedelic nightmare Abbie leans her lesson when the dead rise but not in the way she wished.

With an unsettling home invasion following up next we then move to perhaps the best two sections of the film the first involving a driver named Daryl (Kenneth Trujilo) and his old army buddies who have a very special itual on Halloween involving hunting humans. Visually arresting and packed with gore the climax of this brief but bonkers yarn is chaotic and wonderfully well filmed.

The final fable goes back into the towns past detailing a ghost busting TV crew’s visit to an abandoned mansion which burnt down many years before. Far more innovative than you might imagine this last scare nicely brings things full circle linking in the radio show and giving the film a neat and nasty conclusion.

Obviously inspired by the terrific Trick ‘r Treat seeing as they share a Halloween setting and both feature a monstrous main character with a depraved sense of justice Bad Candy does the best it can seeing as it is made on a much smaller scale with a less recognisable cast than other major anthologies like Ghost Stories or Tales of Halloween. The effects are solid especially when they are practically done although some of the CG scares sadly don’t work so well.

Differing from films like ABC’s of Death or the VHS series due to the fact it only has one directing and scripting team this does provide a coherent style to the proceedings and the interweaving characters and locations make for an interesting narrative. All of this does confuse the wrap around somewhat though as it is unclear whether the tales are being told on the radio as the events unfold and how that could work and a little more clarity on this would have helped the story for sure.

Packed with plenty of horror in a variety of forms as well as all the devilishly good things that make October the 31st the best day of the year Bad Candy is a thoroughly entertaining blood soaked love letter to Halloween and for that reason alone it’s well worth a watch.

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