Bad Candy

SPOOKTOBER chapter 20: A Horror set on Halloween

Have a lot of mixed emotions after "Bad Candy", enjoyed it more than expected, but it's also a considerably bad movie all around. "Trick'R'Treat" has been, and still is, by a mile, the best, definitive Halloween horror comfort film to me, and "Bad Candy", as badly as it might wish, doesn't ascend half as high. Nonetheless, in this intensively colorful and feverishly edited anthology where every story somehow mysteriously feels the same, some seasonal fun is to be had.

I went for some candy because it's a Halloween themed horror anthology, narrated by Corey Taylor, leader of one great band called Slipknot. Well, vaguely narrated... He's "Chilly Billy" on his radio show of the same name, and together with his co-host Paul they tell horror stories live on Halloween night, on Psychotronic FM.... Sounds pretty cool, but, as the stories kick off, we quickly get the gist of what we're in for, and it doesn't really get better, or any different moving forward.

I love for the amount of effort that has gone in "Bad Candy" - the lighting department went demented at some point, the production team probably bought out every Halloween store within a 50 mile radius, the editor and DP's must've been on 10 red bulls a day, because it's a fast paced frenzy where space and time is mixed up sometimes, and at least half of the actors are having good fun in their pastiche roles. While there's always something going on, the budgetary constraints and silly writing, and choppy overall direction remain active flaws throughout, there's some quite bad cgi sprinkled throughout, the acting is wonky frequently within the many characters, dialogue can be pretty kooky, and every story, while different in plot, somehow manages to feel too similar to each other. If there would've been more variety, if "Bad Candy" would be an anthology in a more distinctive way, I would've given it that 5 I was considering.

It's like a C grade horror flick, it's cheap and feels amateur, or like a YouTube video more often than not, but the heart is in the right place, and "Bad Candy" should find its way to those who are true suckers for Halloween vibes. Regardless of quality, it can be felt that makers of "Bad Candy" love the topic. The list of downsides is hefty, so it might be hard to love it, but not very hard to have fun with it. My rating: 4/10.

First, the bad...

Loud audio, bad CGI, predictable, disjointed, over use of drone shots, astoundingly one dimensional characters, smarmy narrators. Plus it infused some brief and very unneeded politics.

Not scary, not funny, not original and not so-bad-that-it's-good. Each vignette just ends. They are just incidents and not stories.

Almost every over-used horror cliche is on display; killer clowns, flying demons, duplicitous ghost hunters, unhinged army veterans, people who put razor blades in candy etc.

On the good side... shot very well, professionally edited, some very subtle homages to other horror films,

The army guys vignette at least had some humor. And I enjoyed their part

Army Guy 1: "You know you get really sleepy after you eat White people."

Army guy 1: "Why didn't you hit her?" Army guy 2 "She was a woman".

Army guy 1 : "What are you, sexist?"

The ending kind of ties things together and I REALLY wanted to like this movie, but it is a mess, a loud, silly mess.

"Bad Candy" is a horror anthology with a Halloween theme, so this is something of an acquired taste. Normally, I do like horror quite a lot, but sadly many of the anthologies found in the horror genre tend to be subpar, if not downright horrible. So it was with some reluctance that I sat down to watch the 2020 horror anthology "Bad Candy".

Well, as it usually is with anthologies, then there are stories that have more appeal to you than others, and of course such was also the case with "Bad Candy". Some of the stories here were adequate, while others were bland and sort of dragging on, with only the first of stories actually standing out as being particularly interesting - for me, at least. In terms of storylines for the anthology, then writers Desiree Connell, Scott B. Hansen and Thacker Hoffman delivered a very mixed bags of nuts here.

Visually, then I must say that "Bad Candy" was actually quite alright. The special effects seen in this anythology were actually quite good and complimented the stories nicely.

The acting in "Bad Candy" was adequate, though I can't really point out anyone's single performance to outshine the others. But all in all, the performances were good.

My rating of "Bad Candy", ultimately lands on a mediocre five out of ten stars. "Bad Candy" is watchable, sure, and will provide adequate entertainment for a single Halloween evening in front of the screen. But in the long run, then "Bad Candy" just didn't have anything outstanding or memorable to offer the audience.

So we watched this largely for Corey Taylor and we typically like horror anthology movies but this is a giant swing and a miss. There were a couple of entertaining moments but this thing tries too hard to be an over the top Trick R Treat without any appeal of Sam. Definitely skip.

Bad Candy (2020) is a movie that I recently watched on Tubi but it's also available on Prime. The storyline follows a local radio show who tells stories about the twisted past of New Salem on Halloween Night.

This movie is codirected by Scott B. Hansen (The Possession Experiment) and Desiree Connell and stars Zach Galligan (Gremlins), Derek Russo (The Mule), Corey Taylor (Rucker), Michael Aaron Milligan (Samaritan) and Haley Leary (Nashville).

This is a movie made up of some short stories that are better than others. The acting and writing is average for the most part but there are some worthwhile scenes. The makeup and outfits are cool and there's a clown in the woods that's awesome. There's also a good use of a nail gun and there's a nurse in this that's smoking and her story was my favorite segment.

Overall, this has some elements that make it a must watch for horror enthusiasts. I would consider this an average addition to the horror genre worth watching once and a 5.5/10.