As I’ve mentioned before, I often spend significant amounts of time browsing through Halloween-themed movies on streaming services, hoping to find something that truly speaks to me. There’s a certain something that I look for in Halloween movies that I can’t quite explain, and I usually know, fairly quickly, when I’ve found it, or, also, when I haven’t.
Not that certain movies aren’t fun watches even if they don’t have that something, and I’ll talk more about those types of movies in the future, but today, I stumbled upon a movie that will surely be added to my list of go-tos and really want to share it.
This is a little movie that came out last September, called Bad Candy.
A few people I know within the Halloween community have watched this movie, but I never hear anyone talk much about it. I won’t lie, I put it on today as background noise while doing some cleaning, fully expecting it to not hold my interest enough to want to actually sit still and watch it. I tend to get cranky about Halloween anthology movies that aren’t Trick ‘R Treat. Not because I hold them all to that standard, but because they tend to be a messy mishmash of disjointed stories, the good ones never good enough to outweigh the bad and warrant a second watch. (One day we will discuss my massive love/hate relationship with Tales Of Halloween…) So I fully expected Bad Candy to fall into that same category.
I was most definitely mistaken, and pleasantly surprised would be an understatement.
This movie had me pretty much from the second it started.
I’m going to try and keep this spoiler free, as I really want people to watch this movie, but here’s the basic gist:
Two radio deejays, “Chilly Billy” and his sidekick Paul, do a special show every Halloween in their little town of New Salem where they tell supposedly true stories of spooky things that have happened there on past Halloweens. They open with the story of how the titular character, a demonic clown called Bad Candy, comes to be, and this story is by far and away my favorite of the batch. It tells the story of a little girl named Kyra, who’s clearly obsessed with Halloween, but sadly has a rough home life with an abusive stepfather. Kyra has a special power, though, that allows anything she draws to come to life, and that’s how Bad Candy comes to be. Honestly, I think this could be a pretty fun standalone film. I’d love to know how this little girl came into such power, if it only works on Halloween, etc., but regardless, it builds the perfect framework for a great Halloween story.
Bad Candy, much like Sam from Trick ‘R Treat, is present in some form or another throughout every pivotal moment in the movie. He is very clearly this movie’s version of Sam, and the whole movie is clearly inspired by Trick ‘R Treat, but it never comes off as a blatant ripoff. There is one character, a man called Mr. Grimsley, that combines elements of Steven Wilkins and Mr. Kreeg, and there’s also a scene involving a vampire that is ever-so-slightly similar to the wolf-girls, but this movie is definitely doing its own thing, regardless of what inspired it.
Even the parts of this movie that I thought would make me tune out, ie the parts about vapid twentysomethings using Halloween as an excuse to drink and party, wound up surprising me in the end. When the subject matter first turns to this, it may make you feel a little “meh”, but keep watching! There is one piece of this storyline that did something so shocking I’m surprised it was able to be shown! And the way this deed was punished, well…the whole thing is twisted and disturbing and one of the more unsettling things I’ve seen done in horror. My only complaint is that I find most of the “young adult” characters fairly uninteresting until the action picks up (which is normal for me with a lot of characters in that age range), but the payoffs are more than worth it. There’s really not a single story in this movie that doesn’t deliver.
I think one of my favorite things about this movie is that it ties all of its stories together pretty seamlessly. As I mentioned above, one of my biggest problems with a lot of these anthology films, is that they claim the stories connect but then they never seem to. Note to some of the other films out there: Setting a bunch of stories in the same town does not make them all connected. But there are instances in this one where things pick up almost right where a previous story leaves off, and characters that appear throughout, some in larger roles and some smaller. The best part, however, is that even the narrators wind up connected to the story. It’s truly impressive.
I am most definitely glad I decided to watch this movie, and I hope that other Halloween lovers will give it a watch, too. If you’re a fan of Trick ‘R Treat, I really think you’ll love Bad Candy as well. It’s definitely the best Halloween anthology film since Trick ‘R Treat. Just enjoy it for what it is, and don’t be tempted to compare.
At the very least, I can definitely promise it will give you all the Halloween vibes.
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