The Circus is back in the quiet haven of Grove Hill, it’s Halloween – and the Freaks have come back home for one night.
Josh Hasty’s CANDY CORN, which is launching via the Frightfest Label, itself a spin-off from the legendary Horror Festival in London which celebrated two decades this year, is the story of a Halloween prank gone wrong – and the consequences of dark actions.
Local boys, seemingly a little too old for the childhood pranks they have continued into young adulthood, decide to repeat a long term process on their target, a mentally-challenged individual called Jacob. Unfortunately, their determination to have a bigger laugh than ever before backfires when they seemingly kill the man in question.
One of the boys, who just so happens to be the son of the town’s sheriff, is determined to keep everything under wraps, but Jacob seems to have survived – and is ready to play a few evil pranks of his own….
OK, so this is very much in the realm of HALLOWEEN (1978) territory, not least in the fact that the film is graced by that film’s PJ Soles (who played Lynda alongside Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie and Nancy Loomis’ Annie) who appears here as a police station secretary. CANDYMAN himself, Tony Todd who Executive Produces the film – a nice apt reference in the title, we guess – also appears as one of the circus individuals.
Everything from the type face of the credits (and the multi-hyphenate director, who proudly proclaims the film as ‘Josh Hasty’s CANDY CORN‘) speaks volumes of John Carpenter’s classic (although Hasty has quite a long way to go before he matches – if not equals – the work of the legendary horror veteran, whose output from 1976’s original ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 to 1986’s BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA has passed into critical and fan folklore).
However, do bear with it, as it does take a side road in the second half of the film, which has clearly the influence of Tobe Hooper’s THE FUNHOUSE (1981) and Tod Browning’s classic 1932 film FREAKS – and it is this that elevates it above many of the post-HALLOWEEN wannabes that populated the cinema and home video landscape in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Gore effects are fine, with Justin Mabry on board, who designed the mask in the hugely successful HALLOWEEN (2018) update, and the music score is very reminiscent of Carpenter’s own for HALLOWEEN and the music for films like Don Cosarelli’s original PHANTASM (1979) and Ulli Lommel’s THE BOGEY MAN (1980).
Knowledgeable horror fans will also spot a knowing reference towards the end of Plainfield, Wisconsin, the home of the late Ed Gein, whose real-life and despicable ghoulish acts inspired the likes of Hitchcock’s PSYCHO (1960, Bob Clark’s DERANGED and the original Tobe Hooper version of THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (both 1974)
You will sense that Hasty has certainly done his homework here and all the elements are in place. The only criticism is that he didn’t exploit the potential to lift this beyond a standard old-style stalk-and-slash – and create something that could be genuinely creepier than what transpires here. It’s not bad, but veteran horror fans will sense there is much more to exploit within the world the director creates here.
On balance, one for horror purists to seek out at first, but with some appeal to other fans – a horror treat combining the spirit of HALLOWEEN with the style and GRAND-eur GUIGNOL pleasure of THE FUNHOUSE.
CANDY CORN will play as part of Frightfest’s HALLOWEEN ALL-DAY event on November 2nd, 2019.
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