Bad Candy
It’s October 31st, and on 66.6 FM DJs Chilly Billy and Paul are filling the airwaves with chatter and stories on the Psychotronic Hallowe’en Show, urban legends and scary tales to entertain and terrify their listeners at home or out on the streets for a night of trick or treating, hoping for the good stuff but wary of the possibility of bad candy…
Directed by Scott B Hansen and Desiree Connell from a script co-written with Thacker Hoffman, Bad Candy is an anthology of linked short horror pieces set around the same town, its inhabitants and its history, children and adults crossing each other’s paths from early evening to the small hours of the morning as Chilly Billy and Paul (Corey Taylor and Zach Galligan) narrate their misadventures from the relative comfort of their station.
There is young Kyra (Riley Sutton), ready to spend the night with her friends but summoned home by her drunken stepfather and locked in her room with nothing but her sketchpad; with a dark talent for art but no encouragement or support, she draws herself a better outcome. Then there is Little Red Riding Hood, calling on the Big Bad Wolf who has, unbeknownst to her, put razor blades in the confectionery, and drug dealer Charlie, trapped alone in the men’s room…
Fortunately, Little Red Riding Hood is a good girl who follows the rules of the night, unlike the little brat dressed as Dracula who spoils it for everyone, smashing pumpkins and filling his pockets at other’s expense; not so good is Abbie (Haley Leary), obliged to leave the big party for night duty at the morgue but still in the mood to enjoy herself, costumed as a naughty nurse eager to resuscitate the dead.
Loosely woven but carried by sheer exuberance, Bad Candy embodies the spirit of Hallowe’en, American style, fully costumed and decorated with pumpkins, skeletons, webs and a surfeit of sugar, drunk and messy and with every bad decision reaping a grim consequence, just desserts served swiftly and with finality.
Bad Candy perhaps not destined to be a seasonal classic but on a par with the similarly structured Tales of Hallowe’en and The Mortuary Collection, the practical effects are as good as the digital effects are bad, the divergence exemplified by the executioner demon summoned by pals Daryl and Vince (Kenneth Trujillo and Derek Russo) and the copious but unconvincing blood, little stabs in the dark which are well aimed but fail to penetrate deeply.
FrightFest will return to Cineworld Leicester Square in London in October
