The Devil's Candy 4K 2015

"The Devil's Candy" is Australian director Sean Byrne's second feature film, following his excellent and hugely successful debut with *The Favourites* in 2009. Prior to that, Byrne had focused primarily on short films.

The plot of The Devil's Candy is fairly standard for the genre and isn’t particularly complex or original, but it’s presented in such an unusual and mesmerizing way that you immediately forget this while watching the film, even though it unfolds monotonously and slowly. Some scenes are deliberately drawn out to put the viewer into a trance, and, it must be said, the director succeeds with ease.

Thanks to the “heavy” soundtrack, woven from a large amount of brutal and demonic music, and the expressive visual style, Birn and his team managed to create several truly terrifying and very tense episodes, with virtually no “jump scare” moments. The film is by no means banal—great attention is paid to detail, and a number of scenes are presented quite originally.

The actors deserve special praise: Ethan Embry (the head of the family, metalhead-artist Jesse) and Chiara Glasco (his daughter Zoe) make a magnificent duo, and Pruitt Taylor Vince fits perfectly into the role of a maniacal killer and is genuinely terrifying.

And yet, “The Devil’s Candy” turned out to be somewhat inferior to “The Beloved,” which has rightfully become a cult classic. Sean Byrne’s debut film had a far more original and dynamic plot, was much more intense, and was intended not only for fans of the genre.

“The Devil's Candy” is a one-off, unhurried, simple, and plot-driven, yet quite vivid, eerie, and stylish thriller with horror elements, possessing a dense, evocative atmosphere and a hypnotic soundtrack.