Review: Candy Corn

Director: Josh Hasty

Screenplay: Josh Hasty

Year: 2019

Voodoo, freaks, and living dead are a few of the distinctive components of the Halloween season, without leaving out the candy corn. "Candy Corn" combines these elements with some gore and places itself as a new product to enjoy during the Halloween season. As with candy corn, this movie will not be to everyone's liking.

In "Candy Corn" a group of youngsters attacks another young man from their town as a Halloween tradition, just that this time the go too far and end up killing him. The owner of a carnival that was in this town brings back to life the killed young man through a voodoo spell. Now, the reanimated seeks vengeance on the people that attacked him one by one.

The director and screenwriter John Hasty bases his movie "Candy Corn" in a Halloween day during the '80s, as he did in his previous work "Honeyspider". Being based in the '80s doesn't have much relevance in the plot besides giving it some style. It only leads to thinking that maybe it's an homage to slasher movies from that decade, from where Hasty clearly takes some inspiration for his story.

After a few minutes in the movie, it draws attention to some familiar faces in the cast. Horror and science fiction legends P. J. Soles (“Halloween”), Tony Todd (“Candyman”), and Courtney Gains (“Back To The Future”) have special appearances in it. Gaines is who has more time on screen interpreting the town's sheriff, but they all have important roles in the plot and are not only simple cameos. The rest of the cast, in general, does a good job but is Pancho Moler (“31”) in his interpretation of Dr. Death who really stands out every time he's on-screen. 

Once the killed guy is brought back to the world of the living and starts his path towards vengeance, gore has its way. Here is where we see the deficiencies of the movie, principally in the budget, that enormously affect the execution of these scenes. The ideas that are presented are very good and they could have been much more impactful and graphic, but in the way they are presented they lose plenty of impact and look cheap. Still, they can be enjoyed by what they are, having their limitations in mind. 

In the monster or killer is where this movie shines. The design of it looks like a mix between a pumpkin and a shrunken Voodoo head that looks great and frightening. The way that its appearances are built up manage to carry a sense of alarm and fear to the viewer. Once you know his mission and what he is capable of, he becomes even more frightening, but his impression ended up being weakened with the faulty presentation of the gore. 

“Candy Corn” presents a simple story with the idea of having a terrifying killer with impressive gore and violence scenes. The first it manages to achieve, in the former it fails. This flaw, along with some issues with the editing, makes it look like a low budget movie (which it is) and ends up affecting it. Even with its problems, “Candy Corn” is an entertaining Halloween movie that can become a favorite to see during this season and it's worth watching even if to see the killer and Dr. Death's scenes, that are without a doubt the best parts of the movie.