Also, it's late and I have to work an overnight reset shift for two days in a row. So, this may be shorter than normal.
As evidenced with last year's righteous-as-fuck Black Roses, heavy metal and horror go together like chocolate and peanut butter. Heck, listening to the self-titled song from Black Sabbath's debut album is enough evidence that the two may have always been meant for one another from the very start. My familiarity with The Devil's Candy was nonexistent, but once I hit play and I noticed that the father in the family was wearing shirts for drone experts Sunn O))) and once-thrashed giants Metallica, I suspected that the movie would have to do a hell of a lot to lose me. I also noticed during a very quick glance at my phone that this was also the sophomore effort from Australian filmmaker Sean Byrne, who was the brain behind the vastly-underrated 2009 release The Loved Ones. So, everything was coming up Milhouse.
Thankfully, The Devil's Candy delivers on a promising concept (a family of three metal-loving individuals moves into a supposedly cursed house and the father begins to experience dark visions and yearnings once he starts painting a portrait in the garage) by offering up the same uncomfortable moments as its director's previous effort, though in much slower builds than expected. Kudos to Sarah Dowling (Mud), who as the head of the casting department, has a keen eye for picking the best performers possible for as strange, smaller budget picture as this one. You've got Shiri Appleby (Roswell, Charlie Wilson's War) and Ethan Embry (Vegas Vacation, The Walking Dead) as the young parents, and their chemistry feels incredibly authentic. There's such an earnest, real-time vibe that you get from watching these two mingle with not just their respective partner, but with their daughter Zooey, who is played by the very promising Kiara Glasco. She is reminiscent of the very best of what we were able to witness in Satanic-leaning pictures of yesteryear, and I am incredibly anxious to see what other projects she has lined up in the future. The real standout in The Devil's Candy ends up being the perplexingly-creepy Pruitt Taylor Vince (Otis of The Walking Dead fame), who while appearing to be nothing more than a confused, mentally unstable man that has connections to their abode, ends up giving into his sinister urges and turns into a truly terrifying antagonist that makes you groan out of fear every time that he gets the chance to interact with our poor heroes. His performance alone helps drive up the fear factor, especially when you consider that he isn't some supernatural being (or is he?), but just a fragile victim of his own sort.
All posters for the flick, despite looking rather eye-catching, are quite deceptive. Byrne's piece is riddled with violence, but none is particularly evident, blatantly in your face, or debatably essential until its final twenty minutes. But my goodness, does that finale deliver an absolute punch to the heart and keep you glued to your seat. In some ways, it shares a lot with the products of American writer/directors such as Ti West (The House of the Devil, The Sacrament), who have always felt that packing enough tension and dread is all worth it when you are able to deliver a conclusion that chills you to the core and sticks to your bones. Some might have minor complaints that it goes into the territory of the somewhat absurd by having one or two characters do something completely out of the ordinary, but I never felt that such a thing would immensely bother me.
With my disappointment of The Void out of the way, seeing something like The Devil's Candy brought my spirits back up, even if it took a lot of morbidity to do so. It exposes you to a lot of promising new talents, be they in front of the camera or not, has some genuinely creepy moments, and as I stated above, a terrific wrap-up. As of this writing, director Sean Byrne's second jump into the horror realm is available for streaming on Netflix, and can easily be purchased on Blu-ray from most retail establishments.
Hell, my only negative may have been in the form of suspecting that Embry and Glasco's characters didn't possess more than four band t-shirts. Hit me up sometime guys! I have a lot to spare!
I won't beat around the bush here: I am not a fan of McG. Though I can't claim to know a great deal about the man himself, he has yet to make a motion picture that I've enjoyed, and always felt like he was trying to ape other Hollywood giants such as Michael Bay (insert Nancy Kerrigan "WHY?" clip). That being said, I'm firmly in the camp of thinking that every person deserves chances until they can finally win me over. After all, it took me nearly ten years to finally come around to James Wan, who I now firmly respect and would even have a pint or two with. So when I saw Netflix's original movie The Babysitter pop up in my suggestions feed, I was slightly hesitant to press play. My original choice for the day was set to be a German flick from the 1970s that dealt with a serial killer who preyed on (and ate) young boys, so would choosing an American production about a twelve-year-old's longtime caregiver suddenly being discovered as a member of an evil cult over something that would most likely be banned in today's world be a wise one?
Well, I don't suppose that the old statement of apples and oranges is entirely untrue here. In fact, The Babysitter may only share slight similarities with every aforementioned movie today in Satanic roots only, as what McG and writer Brian Duffield have delivered is a pretty darn entertaining horror-comedy that can serve as a tasty side dish to anyone who is looking for something to turn the "coming-of-age" subgenre on its head; acting as The Girl Next Door with a much more demonic twist. Our young hero Cole (Judah Lewis) has pretty much everything working against him in this world, save for his kickass babysitter Bee (Ash vs Evil Dead's Samara Weaving), who sticks up for him and seems like the best older friend that a kid could only dream of having. She's into the same stuff he is, often geeking out with him over several subjects, and even letting him drink alcohol when his parents aren't home. The chemistry between these two is so infectious, which makes it all the more depressing when he makes the shocking discovery of what she's secretly been doing after he falls asleep. After we witness Bee and her classmates brutally murder a hapless teenager in the house and drain his blood, you just want to win her back to the side of good. Several stars of the McG-produced film The Duff also show up, including Bella Thorne (Big Love, Boo! A Madea Halloween) and Robbie Amell (The Flash). They're basically playing incredibly-exaggerated clichés, but they provide some authentic laughs in its second half.
Regrettably, not everyone's dialogue delivers, especially Vine celebrity Andrew Bachelor, who just seemed to be written as nothing but the loud, obnoxious African American stereotype that I grew tired of long ago. With awesome pictures like Get Out helping to break down those walls, why even go for this anymore? The erratic screenplay does bring The Babysitter down a peg in terms of sheer enjoyment, but considering that I recently sat through garbage like Wrestlemaniac, I'm willing to cut it some slack. It also does portray its antagonists as some of the most clumsy, if not unlucky scoundrels that I've seen so far in this year's Unseen Terror, especially for a horror-comedy. Shit, even the women in Hausu were more competent than some of these students. There's also a fairly silly subplot involving Cole's feud with a neighborhood bully that doesn't really feel necessary, and when they attempt to do something with the two during its third act, it just kind of falls flat on its face.
Occasionally wonky writing and sheer ridiculousness don't sink The Babysitter though, and it does end up mostly hitting the mark. Viewing this back-to-back with something like say, 2007's The Murder Party wouldn't be a particularly bad plan. It's delightfully dumb, but also very earnest. As if the poster above didn't give it away, this is exclusive to Netflix, so if you're looking to purchase a physical copy, you are probably out of luck for at least another year. But in the meantime, you and your friends can get together one night after school, be it ranging from middle to college, and have a solidly entertaining time.
Besides, sometimes, you just want to turn off your brain, sit back, and watch something simple, but sweet. Well, if you count someone being shot in the breast as sweet.
.....hey, different strokes for different folks.
Tomorrow, well, I guess that we'll just go with my initial plans of viewing that one particular German horror flick like I was going to do. Be strong my stomach...
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