by Jon Partridge
The Devil’s Candy is the new feature from writer/director Sean Byrne, the director of genre/festival favorite The Loved Ones. His new film teeters on generic horror but has some surprises up its sleeve.
Jesse Hellman (Ethan Embry) scrapes by as an artist taking commissions for saccharine images that jar with his more ‘metal tastes’. His daughter Zooey (Kiara Glasco) is a girl after his own heart with predilections for Metallica and Iron Maiden. His wife Astrid (Shiri Appleby) indulges their fancies while binding the whole family together.
They move into a new home on the outskirts of Austin, a spacious house that comes at a low price due to the death of the elderly tenants in the building. What is not revealed is that their death was tied to the acts of their son, the lumbering man-child Ray (Pruitt Taylor Vince) who is also a fan of heavy metal, mostly because it can drown out the voices in his head, dark voices that upon moving in start to whisper in Jesse’s ear too. Soon the two are bridged, with Ray, determined to return home, committing unspeakable acts which are channeled into the imagery Jesse puts down on canvas. Increasingly erratic in his behavior, he begins to realize the mounting threat to his family.
At the start it seems like The Devil’s Candy is going to retread a few familiar horror films, The Amityville Horror and Halloween for instance. However Byrne takes the story in a more personal direction, keeping things focused on the relationship between a father and his daughter, the devilish bridge between Jesse and Ray allows the horror to bleed into the family unit.
Ray’s desire to return home coupled to a growing obsession with Zooey puts the film on a tense track to its well crafted finale, via surrogate sacrifices, growing hints of possession, escalating family tensions, and a superb scene involving duct tape.
The film doesn’t waste too much time explaining what the devilish threat is, but rather spends more time with the family unit, looking at how it affects them. Jesse’s disturbing paintings show terrified children, including Zooey, a terrible piece of foreboding that Jesse finds himself unable to destroy.
The film isn’t in your face with gore, leaving much to editing and your imagination, and it’s all the better for it, cuts of murderous acts with splashes of paint being particularly effective. On top of this, there are some straight up gorgeous wide shots, the Texas vistas a contrast to the more chilling images in Jesse’s art studio. Some of the most haunted imagery comes from the performance of Embry, whose portrayal of a father torn between his daughter and his art (nee Satan) is particularly affecting. Speaking of which, Kiara Glasco sets herself out as one to watch. Vince was born to play these kind of roles and brings a sympathetic air to the tortured Ray.
Metal has a bad reputation, seen by many as a corrupting influence, and The Devil’s Candy goes some way to redress that; it’s only when the metal stops that the killing begins. However its inclusion often feels more like surface dressing than anything truly ingrained into the narrative. A few fakeouts grate too, the most egregious being an exploding gas container in the finale that looks dramatic but has no bearing on the scene. The travails of the family could have been fleshed out more, and Appleby in particular could have been given something more to work with. But the aim of keeping the film focused on the daddy/daughter dynamic is noble and largely successful.
The Devil’s Candy is an atmospheric, tense ride married to a great cast, the family dynamic rooting the film and engaging the viewer well. It’s welcome to see metal actually portrayed in a good light. The moral of the tale is that if someone wants to play metal loud, you should let them! They may have a very good reason.