Candy Land has a laundry list of film festivals credits: Locarno Film Festival, FrightFest, MOTELX – Lisbon International Horror Film Festival, Stockholm International Fantastic Film Festival, Grimmfest, Irish Film Institute Horrorthon, Imagine Fantastic Film Festival, Festival TerrorMolins, New York City Horror Film Festival, and Paris International Fantastic Film Festival. 

Candy Land’s opening is promising when it fades to black with eerie music. That ticking clock black screen theme lasts for 27 seconds and takes the viewer back the same number of years to 1996. The establishing shot that pulls the audience into a world of suspended disbelief does not hide that you have exited at the exploitation truck-stop called Candy Land. If you are a horror fan with kids in the house, make sure they are sound asleep before pressing play. 

Straight To It 

Candy Land pulls its audience right into an old- fashioned exploitation film by baring more skin than Vampiros Lesbos (1971) and a less scary setup than Halloween (1975). 

The viewers are dropped instantly into a trick’s lap as Sadie (Sam Quartin), a truck-stop sex worker, rides into view. Sadie is atop a trucker in his big rig at “the last stop west, off of exit 17 on U.S. Route 66.” After she earns her snack money, she goes on her quest to cop another Ding Dong.

Horror Basics 

First time horror film writer/director John Swab teams up once again with director of photography Will Stone. Their creative Steadicam shot is used properly to drop the audience into the world of Candy Land with a nice stylized chase following three of Candy Land’s five ensemble cast members. The zigzagging shot moving across the screen from left to right is a great start because it never reveals the characters’ faces. This makes the audience feel that they are looking over the shoulder of a killer stalking Sadie, Levi (Owen Campbell), and Liv (Virginia Rand) through a dangerous lot packed with cars, trucks, and buses. 

This establishing shot that had so much potential only partially achieves the main goal of this horror movie. It fails to meet the basic requirements of the genre by not challenging the fear of the audience and putting the viewers into the world of suspended disbelief. Nevertheless, it was able to evoke suspense by not showing the characters’ faces. It also achieves the darkness factor with a seedy, creepy truck stop which would make the average person cringe when having to stop for gas, but never really achieves true hints of violence. 

Candy Land’s opening is very critical and has all the makings of great horror flicks like Halloween (1978), Friday the 13th (1980), and The Shining (1980) with great tracking shots. This keeps the audience on edge, but never heightens the fear with any type of shocking reveal, which continues to be a problem throughout the entire movie. It is hard to pinpoint exactly what it is missing. It could be a continuity error preventing a seamless flow allowing viewers to escape their “suspension of disbelief”. It may also be the daylight shots, the absence of a strange psycho overbearing music score that increases an array of human-sinister emotions, a lack of dialogue to instill a fear of a character, or the fact it has not one scary, suspenseful payoff to accompany its opening. 

Candy Land also may be a victim of editing choices made by Andrew Aaronson and John David Allen that once again releases viewers from a world of horror and back into the reality that echoes a vibe similar to watching a serial killer bloodbath drama.