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Bad Candy Reviews

When Bad Candy is on point it is actually pretty good and very effective at evoking the required seasonal atmosphere.

Full Review | Oct 18, 2021

It's Tales of the Mayhem You Damn Well Expect, Nay Insist Upon, Given It Has an 18 Certificate.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 29, 2021

Bad Candy might not have any higher aspirations or deeper thoughts on its mind beyond staging some gory thrills, but it does often feel a bit smarter than other films in the way it sometimes jumps over horror tropes and delivers clever reveals.

Full Review | Sep 21, 2021

Thanks to the cinematography of co-director Scott Hansen and Blake Studwell, the movie looks great, but the visuals can only do so much. There are a few too many tricks in this bag of sweets.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 15, 2021

There is no doubting the skill that goes into Bad Candy's good qualities, and the al-libs/outtakes shown during the closing credits are genuinely funny.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Sep 14, 2021

As weird as it sounds, the film works best as a showcase for the acting talents of the dude from Slipknot, which is really saying something.

Full Review | Sep 14, 2021

All of the stories feel roughly the same and none of them come to any sort of satisfying conclusion.

Full Review | Original Score: 1/5 | Sep 13, 2021

Atmosphere is here, but so is a chaotic feel for storytelling, with the helmers frequently throwing scenes at the audience to see what sticks.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Sep 9, 2021

An entirely bewildering narrative structure, especially at early doors, means that any potential for Bad Candy to be entertaining is quickly lost.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 1, 2021

The irrationality of all these interactions between storytellers & their storied characters only adds to the uncanniness of Bad Candy, whose tricksiness comes mixed with the treats of some very macabre humour, gory mayhem & moody autumnal atmosphere.

Full Review | Aug 27, 2021

Vague Visages

Movies, tv & music • independent film criticism • soundtrack guides • forming the future • est. 2014, review: scott b. hansen and desiree connell’s ‘bad candy’.

Horror anthologies are deceptively easy to mess up. Although the multi-story structure allows for potentially more experimentation than a typical single-plot film, the implicit danger is that the whole thing will careen off the rails much faster. Sometimes, as with the recent Scare Package,  the story feels more cohesive than many non-anthology movies, despite several filmmakers taking part.  The Mortuary Collection, meanwhile, makes a case for anthologies devised by a single writer-director. Bad Candy straddles both sides , as it’s the brainchild of Scott B. Hansen and Desiree Connell with an additional story credit for Thacker Hoffman. Tied together by a simple framing device, with every story taking place in the same town — New Salem! — this particular anthology somehow manages to be disjointed, unfocused and utterly disposable all at once .  

The framing device, somewhat ripped off from A Christmas Horror Story (itself a far better anthology), sees a couple of radio hosts telling scary stories on Halloween night. As played by Gremlins star Zach Galligan — looking utterly miserable, and understandably so — and Slipknot/Stone Sour vocalist Corey Taylor, engineer Paul and host Chilly Billy supposedly provide an anchor for the ensuing madness. However, despite the fact that Billy introduces each story, they all quickly blend into one, making it difficult to ascertain which tale is being told at any one time. Furthermore, none of the featured stories makes an impact. They’re all derivative, baggy, badly made and not in the least bit scary . The Bad Candy performances, meanwhile, range from wooden to committed but lack the requisite material to back them up. Galligan and Taylor are the strongest actors in the bunch, so it’s a shame that viewers don’t get to spend more time with them .  

The storytelling in Bad Candy has a strange ADD quality to it, almost as though Hansen and Connell are worried they’ll lose momentum if they spend too much time on one story. The focus keeps hopping from location to location, character to character, and with little direction. Meanwhile, the editing is shocking, so abrupt and off-kilter it’s as though the various shots were simply stumbled upon. At 100 minutes, Bad Candy should be the ideal length for an anthology, but it feels equally overlong and rushed. The tone is also disconcertingly serious for such lowbrow material (there’s necrophilia, for one thing). Jokes are lightly scattered throughout, but there aren’t nearly enough of them ( metal twins meeting girly twins is a standout moment, brushed past all too quickly). Hansen and Connell should’ve had much more fun with their premise, considering that Bad Candy is set during Halloween and features a whole bunch of people in accurately low-rent costumes. This isn’t exactly the sleekest presentation, but it could’ve benefited from being grubbier.  

Early on, there’s a cute little critter controlled with impressive puppetry, but the creation is utterly wasted in favor of increasingly dodgy VFX. In fact, it never shows up again, which is galling considering the painstaking detail of the design rivals everything else in the movie. Bad Candy boasts a certain amount of cool practical FX, including some horrifying nails through a character’s foot and blood splattered artfully on a MAGA hat, while the creature design on a giant man-bat and a clown with eerily long fingers is impressive. Mostly, though, Hansen and Connell are overly reliant on fuzzy CGI for no discernible reason. The titular clown — bad candy exists in many different variations, from laced treats to literal drugs — unconvincingly sucks out characters’ souls , the act never feeling as dangerous as it should because the effect is so lackluster. There’s a lot of different stuff thrown at the screen, from evil ride share drivers to murderous masked killers , but none of it sticks despite the creators’ obvious enthusiasm.  

Connell’s influence is at least felt in the lack of female bodies on display, their decidedly unsexy Halloween costumes and the fact that at least two female characters take their heels off to better handle a stressful situation. Likewise, a man ends up in less clothes than his female counterpart during a key chase sequence. Mostly, though, there’s not enough time to care about any of these characters since they’re gone almost as soon as they appear. A deaf kid features prominently in the opening segment, and there are several POC included at various points too, but nobody is developed enough to really make an impact. They all, essentially, boast one-line descriptors — abusive stepfather, rat-faced drug dealer, horny weirdo, etc. The only real character development in Bad Candy, in fact, is with Paul and Billy, and even then, it comes so late in the game that it’s hard to conjure up much reason to care. As weird as it sounds , the film works best as a showcase for the acting talents of the dude from Slipknot, which is really saying something.  

Joey Keogh ( @JoeyLDG ) is a writer from Dublin, Ireland with an unhealthy appetite for horror movies and Judge Judy. In stark contrast with every other Irish person ever, she’s straight edge. Hello to Jason Isaacs.

Categories: 2020s , 2021 Film Reviews , 2021 Horror Reviews , Featured , Horror , Thriller

Tagged as: Bad Candy , Desiree Connell , Horror , Joey Keogh , Scott B. Hansen , Thriller

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Tod browning and the making of freaks, universal studios monsters: a legacy in horror, severance: a review of the stunning apple tv+ show, reacher: the hits and misses of amazon prime’s popular series, making the munsters (1963-66), hollywood feuds: angelina jolie and jon voight, who killed hot toddy the mysterious death of thelma todd, the hollywood vampires – a drunken oral history, scholars’ spotlight: ray harryhausen, scholars’ spotlight: the legacy of irving thalberg, scholars’ spotlight: irwin allen: “the master of disaster”, twisters review: you put an “s” at the end, 3 body problem: a review of the outstanding new netflix series, daddio review: an acting showcase for dakota johnson and sean penn with surprising depth, james bond in space the making of moonraker (1979), scholars’ spotlight: audrey hepburn, scholars’ spotlight: robert shaw, the good half interviews part two: david arquette, the good half interviews part one: elisabeth shue, an interview with star trek and space cadet science advisor erin macdonald, bad candy: a review of scott b. hansen’s new horror anthology.

Cinema Scholars presents a review of the new horror anthology Bad Candy , directed by Scott B. Hansen and starring Zack Galligan, Corey Taylor, and Derek Russo. Dread, Epic Pictures’ horror brand, will release the film in select theaters on September 10, 2021, with the VOD and Blu-ray release to follow later.

Introduction

It’s almost Fall, the time of year when some people start complaining about Halloween decorations in stores appearing too early, while others rejoice at the first hints of their favorite time of year. In the movie universe, early September is also when theaters and streaming platforms begin to pack their slates with an onslaught of new spooky selections.

It’s curious that of all film genres, horror seems to be the only category (save for some documentaries) that has fully embraced the anthology format. Perhaps it’s due to the popularity of spine-tingling short stories. Maybe it’s a great way for filmmakers to make good use of the smaller films they made before graduating. Or could it be that the collective format is a great way for producers to combine the incredible talents of several filmmakers at once?

From Stephen King and George Romero’s Creepshow to more modern versions like Trick or Treat and Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark , the horror anthology has become somewhat of a sub-genre on its own. In the latest iteration of this well-worn category, the new chiller Bad Candy , from director Scott B. Hansen, spooks audiences with multiple spine-tingling tales.

The Premise

The film begins with a classic “wrap-around” story that features two DJs in the middle of broadcasting their popular Chilly Billy segment on Psychotronic Radio 66.6 FM in the storybook town of New Salem. Chilly Billy (Corey Taylor of the band Slipknot) takes calls while his sidekick Paul (Zach Galligan from Gremlins ) chimes in from time to time in typical talk radio fashion. As the hosts share their commentary between sinister stories, it slowly becomes clear that their narrative isn’t as benign as it seems.

Does such an esoteric station exist? Do they churn out shocking content regularly or just on Halloween? How many terrible legends does New Salem have? Does anyone get the reference to Michael Weldon’s cult classic catalog The Psychotronic Video Guide ? Those who are already having trouble with such questions should go ahead and check their disbelief at the door, because Bad Candy is full of ridiculous fun surprises within a simple premise that sets the perfect stage for a bunch of delightfully horrifying tales.

Chapter One

The initial story follows a young girl, Kyra, who joins her pals at their clubhouse for some pre-trick or treating costume prep. Just as they are about to set out on their yearly sugar odyssey, Kyra gets the call from her stepfather that she is to return home immediately, abruptly ending her fun for the night. It becomes immediately obvious that Kyra’s stepfather is not the nice kind as he locks her away in her bedroom for the night.

In a fit of utter disgust, Kyra takes to her only solace, her trusty sketch pad and pencil. As the emboldened young girl begins to unleash her imagination in a flurry of scribbles on the page, her creepy creations begin to come to life, literally. Soon, she and her new accomplices exact their revenge on her evil stepfather.

The whimsical tale is wonderfully embellished with some pretty great low-budget CGI and practical effects that strike just the right balance between silly and scary. The story also serves as a sort of touchstone for the rest of the film, as Kyra may-or-may-not have unleashed one of the film’s main villains.

From here, the stories start to unfold in rapid succession. First, the neighborhood creep who hides razors in his treats gets a taste of his own medicine. Then there’s the metal show drug dealer who gets more than he bargained for. Next, a morgue worker’s penchant for necrophilia catches up with her.

Perhaps the most impressive scares (and chuckles) come in an entry about a crew of veterans who gather once a year to quell their brother in arms’ government-engineered bloodlust. Once a year the fellow vets round up a selection of unwitting victims who are then hunted down by their buddy who has transformed into…to spoil this one is to ruin the fun, but let it be known that the creature work in this Bad Candy segment rivals that of any CGI spectacle in recent memory, with a seamless marriage of practical and digital imagery.

While Bad Candy isn’t a slick, big-budget studio production, like many recent horror anthologies, director Scott B. Hansen seems to have turned those limitations into opportunities for creativity with his unique and believably freaky storytelling style. Some of Bad Candy ’s rough edges make the film even more endearing while enhancing the rawness of the best scares. This accessibility, paired with gorgeous Halloween-heavy production design and a sophisticated eye in each vignette, helps the movie leap over any major low-budget pitfalls.

Though some of the stories seem to be connected, incidentally and not, other threads between stories end up as loose ends that never quite tie together. Thankfully, this doesn’t diminish the overall satisfying collection of tales. Perhaps additional viewings will reveal a more common thread, but aside from the wrap-around narrative, someone looking for a solid through-line might find themselves somewhat lost.

As in many of Bad Candy ’s predecessors, most of the players that meet a terrifying end seem to have it coming. Though there are a few instances of senseless collateral damage. Presenting the doomed characters as less-than-innocent keeps the film from feeling too mean-spirited. Few things hit better than sweet redemption. Bad Candy does itself a favor by capitalizing on the “bad guys get it in the end” narrative trope that helps justify a fair amount of gore.

Performances

Bad Candy ’s segments feature a wide range of terrific performances from an army of unknowns. However, special kudos go to Haley Leary as the necrophiliac morgue worker who makes crossing such an unimaginable line seem even a tiny bit palatable. Leary’s command of her character’s cringe is most commendable, and the main reason why this chapter succeeds.

Providing star power in the film by way of the wrap-around Psychotronic Radio segment, Zach Galligan and Corey Taylor hold their own as local horror honchos. Galligan keeps it fairly low-key as sidekick Paul. Just when it seems like he might play it cool for the entire duration, a shift in his character’s arc finally reveals Galligan’s full spectrum with a terrifying turn. Good timing for Bad Candy too, as Galligan has been enjoying the throwback spotlight in a recent commercial reteaming the actor with a certain Mogwai.

Anyone doubting that Slipknot lead singer Corey Taylor can hold his own in a horror film will be pleasantly surprised by his natural performance as Chilly Billy. Then again, it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise considering the musician-turned-actor has spent much of his career clad in grotesque costumes and masks in a particularly performative brand of shock metal. Though his performance early in the film is pretty standard DJ fare, Taylor gets to shine later on when his character’s narrative starts to unravel, proving that his talents aren’t just limited to macabre theatrics.

For Halloween hounds looking for a fun flick to fill their October (or September!) nights, Bad Candy is full of satisfying fun-size treats. From killer clowns and pimp fights, to ghost hunters and tricksters-turned-to-trinkets, Bad Candy has something for every horror lover.

Dread, Epic Pictures’ horror brand, will release Bad Candy in select theaters on September 10, 2021. The film then drops on VOD this September 14 with the Blu-ray debut to follow later on October 12, 2021.

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Review: Digital Thunderdome’s BAD CANDY Makes a Great Movie

by Michael DeFellipo Sep 9, 2021, 9:13 am 0 Comments

Halloween season has official begun (right?) and hopefully ‘the most wonderful time of the year’ will see horror fans with their asses in movie theaters, watching a bunch of twenty-somethings get murdered by a variety of dastardly devils. One such movie, Digital Thunderdome and Black Triad Entertainment Group’s BAD CANDY, is starting a limited theatrical release tomorrow – and it’s a title that you want to add to your must see list. When it comes to Halloween themed movies, atmosphere and mood are incredibly important and BAD CANDY perfectly encompasses everything we love and hope for in a flick that takes place right after Mischief Night. I want to live there, in the world created in BAD CANDY. Sure, creatures of the night potentially butchering me on an hourly basis is a bummer, but I found myself jealous of the fact that the cast and crew of BAD CANDY got to live in the world co-directed by Scott Hansen and Desiree Connell and that I only get to be there as an observer.

BAD CANDY is a horror anthology grounded by two familiar faces – Slipknot’s Corey Taylor and Gremlin’s Zach Galligan. Together, they play radio DJs Chilly Billy and Paul of the Annual Psychotronic FM Halloween Show. While on air, they share stories and myths that have rocked the town of New Salem. Are the stories nothing but grizzly fairytales or is New Salem a playground for all things evil? BAD CANDY has something for everyone – a killer clown with the potential to be an indie icon, slashers, morgues and monsters, sex appeal, rock and roll and ghosts. Out of all the segments and without giving away any spoilers, the ‘morgue short’ and the ‘pumpkinhead story’ were my favorite pieces of the puzzle. Corey Taylor, Zach Galligan, Derek Russo, Ryan Kiser, Kenneth Trujillo, Mike Milligan, Haley Nicole Leary, Bill Pacer and Alexandra Lucchessi start in a feature film from screenwriter Desiree Connell.

BAD CANDY was co-produced by Scott Hansen and Steve Gebara, and features cinematography by Scott Hansen and editing by Hansen and Blake Studwell. I wish I could give everyone credit for their part in this project, but copying and pasting an IMDB page is probably plagiarism. Seriously, though, everyone deserves credit for their contribution to this award winning, film festival favorite. From costumes to props to special effects, stop motion effects, lighting and each department in between – BAD CANDY is a banger, an indie film that looks like and is worth a million bucks. BAD CANDY appeals to indie fans and Hollywood tit suckers because its biggest appeal is its Halloween theme and it whips that together effortlessly. You can watch this film every month of the year and it’ll still make you feel like it’s October. And it’s a beautiful masterpiece as far as camera work is concerned. The amount of visuals in BAD CANDY, shit, every scene could be used as a promotional still.

I need to remain impartial as a review, but there isn’t anything I can harp on here. The audio work isn’t always 100%… and that’s about it. I’ve promoted BAD CANDY throughout its various stages of production and I’m overjoyed that it is so successful and is as good as I had hoped it would be. BAD CANDY is exactly what we need after so many horror films were delayed due to the pandemic – something that’s fun and endearing yet scary, bloody and surprising. It’s macabre and suspenseful, but it also doesn’t take itself too seriously to the point that it loses its inherent spookiness. You can pre-order BAD CANDY on iTunes by clicking the link below, and keep your eyes on the film’s Facebook for more theater information, streaming news and the upcoming Blu-ray release currently slated for October 12th 2021. This is one anthology you don’t want to miss! Final Score: 10/10.

Pre-order Bad Candy on iTunes HERE .

Michael DeFellipo

(Senior Editor)

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[Movie Review] BAD CANDY

• September 9, 2021
• J.M. Brannyk

BAD CANDY is directed and written by the duo Scott B. Hansen and Desiree Connell and is a Halloween anthology film. So, if you’re in need of more Halloween-themed anthologies, here you go!

Horror-themed radio jockey Chilly Billy (Corey Taylor) and his side-kick Paul ( Zach Galligan ) tell tales of terror on their radio show on Halloween night. Little do they know, the residents of the small town are about to meet their grisly ends in his tales of terror.

So, this movie is fine . It’s never sinking into the depths of awful, but never really rises into anything fully spectacular or memorable. The short stories themselves have little tension, and the pay-offs never feel complete.

There is so much going on. It feels like a haunted house but not in a good way. Like, there’s always something popping out, but we lose a lot of the substance of the story and characters. The substance we do have is often lost in the motion and noise (or the numerous close-ups of Halloween decorations). There needed to be more attention to detail (come on, fake Dollar Tree candle for the demon’s altar?), more structured stories, and more fluid pacing.

The acting could be stiff at times, but could shine through, especially during the bathroom monster segment and the Abbie ( Haley Leary ) segment. One thing that really was gorgeous was the cinematography. The shots were fun while trying some new things and keeping some traditions, too. The Abbie drug sequence was beautifully shot and, if that had been the tone of BAD CANDY , we would have had a very different movie (and a very different review).

However, there was just too much going on and, if they had stuck to the typical three-part segment of most anthologies, and really nailed those, it probably would have been a much smoother film. The creature designs and effects were great, and I would have loved to have seen them utilized more and more tension added; however, with the time we were given, it was very, “thank u, next”.

BAD CANDY is a fine movie, like I said. Middle of the road for me. But if you’re a fan of anthologies with a lot of stories, it might be the treat you’ve been looking for.

BAD CANDY  will be available in select theaters on September 10th, will be available on Video On Demand on September 14th, and will be available on Blu-ray by October 12th.

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Bad Candy Movie Review

Written by Sean M. Sanford

Released by Epic Pictures | DREAD

Directed by Scott B. Hansen and Desiree Connell Written by Desiree Connell, Scott B. Hansen, and Thacker Hoffman 2020, 103 minutes, Not Rated Released on September 14th, 2021

Starring: Zach Galligan as Paul Derek Russo as Vince Corey Taylor as Chilly Billy

The autumn fog unfurls against the forest floor, sweeping an embrace around the woodsy carcasses laid bare for the year. Every bird has gone silent, every branch de-robed and nothing remains but silence beyond the occasional landing of a leaf or acorn from the tendrils above, the straggling remains of a livelier time. A soundtrack one is likely to find only in a cemetery before the forested expanse has gone to bed for the year. That is, other than the wolves who cry at the full moon, the bats who amble across the nightscape, and any of the other creatures who only come out when all signs of life have left. I walked through the sprawl and out to the grey cityscape, dead to the world, so I could go grab a beer at a haunted tavern on Haight street…

Whoa, sorry, I got a little side-tracked, what were we talking about again? Oh yeah, the movie Bad Candy . It seems to have put me in quite the creepy mood, and for good reason. Bad Candy takes place on Halloween, pockmarked by a DJ named Chilly Billy, who’s recording his radio show in which he shares tales of macabre wonder.

The movie is like a collage of horrors, going from one story to the next, some characters spilling into the yarns of others. It’s not a Tales from the Crypt sort of scenario with a title screen for each story, but a mesh in which one story will flow into the next, most times forwarded by an intro by the cheesy and moderately dislikable Chilly Billy.

I enjoyed this movie because it has all the horrors one hopes to fear encountering on Halloween, from Dracula to Frankenstein’s Monster, to partying teens, to a guy who puts razor blades in his candy, right down to quite possibly the last thing a young woman wants to see alone in the dark, a bro-dude wearing a MAGA hat. Holy shit, talk about terrifying! It does a great job embodying the classic merriment of the most horrific and wonderful time of year; orange leaves scattered through the streets, jack-o-lanterns blazing on darkened stoops, little hellions running around like they just got their yearly Fuck Shit Up Hall Pass.

The special effects are pretty bootsy but thankfully sparing, as the movie focuses more on make-up and costumes, both of which hold a nauseating girth. Some of the monsters featured here are wont to haunt me even more than some of the more disturbing storylines; like an undertaker who tries to bone her latest customer, apparently misunderstanding when told he was a stiff.

This movie holds all the midnight wonders of old-fashioned ghost stories, inspiring my pilgrimage to Trax Bar, a haunted watering hole on Haight street. The folks who were bartending there all had similar reports of a man who kept popping up, be it by turning on the light in a room that nobody was in, tussling the bead curtains, and even coming through the locked front door when a barkeep was counting the money at night.

One year a fire broke out in the bar’s backroom, revealing things hidden in the walls from back in the early and mid-1900s. Like a Winchester Model 54 (which haven’t been manufactured since 1936), an antique timepiece, and a photo of the inside of the bar taken one New Year’s Day. Everyone in the photo is wearing Jazz-era garb and looking like they’re Gonna Party Like it’s 1939. They’re casually posing for the photo, and one man is pointing at the camera, donned with a devilish smirk. This man was recognized by all present as the bar’s resident ghost. They hung it up in the bar’s entrance, maybe as a way to make peace with the spirit. Nonetheless, he’s said to still come back, inspiring stories like the ones seen in Bad Candy . Although with likely less necrophilia.

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Movie Review – Bad Candy (2020)

October 3, 2021 by admin

Bad Candy , 2020.

Directed by Scott B. Hansen & Desiree Connell. Starring Zach Galligan, Corey Taylor, Derek Russo, Audrey Williams, Bill Pacer, Wayne, Kenneth Trujillo.

A late-night radio DJ and his producer tell some spooky stories on their Halloween show.

The Halloween anthology movie has become something of a ‘thing’ over the past few years, with the likes of Trick ‘r Treat and Tales of Halloween becoming firm favourites by successfully capturing the spirit of the season and, more importantly, by having more hits than misses in their storytelling arsenal. Bad Candy is the latest anthology to base itself on the spookiest time of the year but does it manage to capture the essence of Samhain night in quite the same way the previously mentioned titles?

Yes it does, in a fun Halloween-decorations-aisle-in-Poundland kind of way. From the outset Bad Candy drenches your retinas with neon lighting and lulls you into a certain mood by way of a late-night DJ named Chilly Billy (Slipknot singer Corey Taylor) and his producer Paul ( Gremlins’ Zach Galligan), who encouraged their listeners to call in with creepy stories to fill the airwaves. Yeah, it’s a bit of a cliché and a slightly naff way of doing it but it works as a setup, and Taylor and Galligan have the right energy to pull it off.

As is traditional with these things the first story is a little bit lame, where a young girl has to give up her evening trick or treating with her friends due to her abusive step-dad demanding she stay at home. For some reason this big brute of a man has a real thing against Halloween – as fathers in anthology movies tend to do – but his mischievous step-daughter has a magic drawing pad where whatever she draws comes alive, and so she draws a weird little Muppet-like creature with sharp teeth, a fairy and a weird demon. You can guess the rest, although it is worth pointing out that this is where we get our first glimpse of the terrible CGI that makes far too many appearances throughout the movie.

But before we get there we get a very short segment where a grumpy old man presses razor blades in the candy he hands out, prompting the question again about why these people aggressively hate Halloween. Anyway, his number is up when a devil-horned masked clown – who pops up several times throughout and is credited as being called Bad Candy – knocks on his door and shows him the error of his ways. Again, it’s all a bit predictable but the lairy colours and weird performance from Bill Pacer are charming enough, although whether this is considered as a full story or just a short interlude highlights one of Bad Candy’s biggest flaws, namely how messy the stories are and how the whole thing fits together.

It feels like co-directors/writers Scott B. Hansen and Desiree Connell are attempting to create their own little universe in which to set their stories, in a similar style to Trick ‘r Treat if you will, but although certain characters pop up here and there, some stories get dropped and then pick up again later on and we have the recurring Bad Candy clown character waltzing in and out at various times to try and link it all together, it all feels a bit slapdash and unstructured, especially when trying to figure out where one story ends and another begins. It’s a flaw that only gets more frustrating the further into the movie you go and by the time the final story starts wrapping up the momentum has been lost and it becomes clear that Bad Candy should have ended about 15 minutes earlier.

But it isn’t all bad. In fact, when Bad Candy is on point it is actually pretty good and very effective at evoking the required seasonal atmosphere. The central story, involving a drunk morgue attendant and a corpse she takes a fancy to, is the obvious highlight and is the only story that goes straight for the macabre without any huge setup, and it actually feels like a complete story from start to finish. As previously stated, the neon lighting, bright colours and autumnal aesthetics work very well throughout, Corey Taylor and Zach Galligan lend enough weight to their particular roles to pull off what is required from them and there is plenty of gore on offer (although a lot of it is CGI blood, and we all know that no good can ever come of that, kids) so for a horror anthology that evokes the spirit of Halloween it just about does enough to warrant being played on a TV screen in the background at a Halloween party where you can dip in when it looks interesting. The problems only come when you try to sit down and follow what is happening because as a non-linear narrative it just doesn’t gel or go anywhere satisfactory. Still, that morgue scene, though…

Flickering Myth Rating  – Film: ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★

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BAD CANDY (2020) [Anthology, Supernatural]

BAD CANDY (2020) (NO SPOILERS)

Last year I watched (or re-watched) a horror movie every day for the Month of October. This year...I watched two! This is movie #15

In this anthology film, as the radio DJs of 66.6 FM fill the Halloween airwaves of New Salem with spooky stories, we get to see these yarns in little vignettes, even as one story catches up with the on-air personalities and a demonic looking clown jester lurks...

Well, I love me some anthology horror film, and the Halloween version of this style has a number of attempts already - TRICK 'R TREAT (2007) , TALES OF HALLOWEEN (2015) , ALL HALLOW'S EVE (2013) - and...here's another one. But, in all honesty, anthology film are always a mixed bag (see what I did there?) and, truth to tell, this one isn't very different. Actually, scratch that, I found this more a bag of raisins and pennies than delicious treats.

You're gonna get GREMLINS styled puppets, soul-sucking, some cheesy visual FX (like CGI blood), a title that comes 19 minutes into the movie (!), caricature drunken redneck dads, creepy sadistic candy-spikers, drug dealers in grimy bathrooms, necrophilia and zombies, a near-nonsensical installment about a home robbery, and a bunch of small-town vigilantes with a monster on their side - but this is all goofy, silly sub- CREEPSHOW stuff, broad and cartoonish (if ambitious!). Maybe that's what you want and if so, have at it.

Sure, there's some occasional sweetness. The TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE homage opening is nice, as is the prominently placed Zacherley photo in one scene, and the chatting prostitutes are fun. But, in all honesty, it's hard to know who this movie is for exactly - despite the broad goofiness, it can't be kids (because of that aforementioned necrophilia story, not to mention the prostitutes, drugs and violence), and the jokey vigilante segment is kind of hard to take (I guess we're supposed to be on the side of these guys, who torture and execute low level drug dealers and prostitutes for breaking the moral law?). Eh

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6561576/

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Cast Zach Galligan , Corey Taylor , Derek Russo , Haley Leary Directors Desiree Connell , Scott B. Hansen Producers Bret Disend , Desiree Connell , Jacob Kasher , , Richard Fitzpatrick , Scott B. Hansen , Steve Gebara Writers Desiree Connell , Scott B. Hansen

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Review: Bad Candy

Dave Film and TV , Reviews

DVD & Digital: Bad Candy (2020)

Framed around 2 radio hosts ( Zach Galligan  and Corey Taylor ) who proceed to tell scary stories while broadcasting their annual Fright Fest show, each tiny tale throws you into the usual mix of monsters and mayhem.

Bad Candy very much reminded me of direct to video horror movies that I used to rent in the 80’s, complete with garish neon lighting, questionable acting, and some bloody practical effects…though seeing as we are now in the 21st Century, cgi effects are also used here too.

Each individual story the radio hosts tell doesn’t always involve a traditional 3 act structure, and are more of a quick tale which involves the odd scary moment. As with a lot of anthology movies, some parts hit their mark and some don’t.

If you go into Bad Candy expecting the next big budget horror movie, or even something along the lines of the popular Trick ‘r Treat , then you will probably be disappointed.

However, if you enjoy (or remember renting, if you’re an old git like myself) low budget DTV flicks from the 80’s, there could be just enough here to squeeze out 100 minutes of entertainment for you…especially if viewed on October 31st at a fancy dress party filled with friends where you can all play “spot the horror movie reference” as you watch it….I watched it on a sunny afternoon, alone, with a cup of coffee.

Bad Candy is released on 4th October 2021 by Kaleidoscope Entertainment.

Review by Dave from a streaming link kindly supplied by Kaleidoscope Entertainment via Witchfinder PR.

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Movie Review: Bad Candy

credit: Bad Candy

With Halloween on the way, it’s only right to start focusing on the things that go bump in the night and everything that tries to bump but ends up tripping and falling into a rotting pile of pumpkins or something equally nasty. Despite having been out for the past couple of years, it’s easy to understand why Bad Candy hasn’t really been on the lips of so many horror buffs since the stories held within this movie are juvenile as hell but kind of fun at the same time. In a big way, it does feel as though a couple of these stories are something that might have been thought up by those who know what they want to see but can’t quite translate that to the screen. The one redeeming quality that this movie possesses is that it does star Corey Taylor, the lead singer of Slipknot, as Chilly Billy, a DJ that’s telling each story as it happens, as though it’s not real. Of course, things turn out to be very real when all is said and done, but it’s an entertaining ride, all the same, one realizes that shutting off their brain and parking themselves for a couple of hours is the best way to enjoy this movie. 

As horror movies go, it could be placed in the comedy section without fail. 

There is enough hilarity placed into each story, even if it’s not meant to be taken that way. A couple of the stories might lean a little heavily into the actual horror aspect that the movie is going for, but containing your laughter might be a little more difficult when it comes to the manner in which some of the people in this movie meet their end. It’s not tough at all to think that some folks hide their fear by laughing since it can be passed off as a nervous tic or something that hides just how close a person is to peeing their pants out of sheer terror. But this movie inspires laughs simply because so much of the material is ridiculous, and to be fair, laughter is better than a sneer or an eye roll brought on by boredom. If you’re not in the mood to give this movie the benefit of the doubt and just enjoy it, then it’s probably best to avoid it at all costs. 

If you like disjointed anthologies, then this is the movie for you. 

The attempt to keep everything under the anthological umbrella that is Bad Candy is admirable in a way, but at the same time, it feels as though each one of these stories could easily be located in another town or another state and have absolutely nothing to do with each other. In fact, it kind of does feel that way even if it’s made clear that everything is happening in this town and that the DJ is trying to entertain the people who might be listening. The effect is lost in a big way since each story feels as though it’s self-contained and doesn’t have any bearing on the others, even if the Halloween theme helps to connect them. Movies like Trick ‘R Treat did a far better job of keeping the overall connection between stories alive since the characters would occasionally be within sight of each other, and it’s far more obvious that they’re in the same location since one set will be seen more than once. It does happen that we get to see the same scenery in this movie, but one has to be watching closely, or they might feel as though they’re watching a different movie from one story to the next. 

Some of these stories have been done and overdone for years. 

The razors and other materials in the candy, kids misbehaving, ghost stories, and many other stories have been done in numerous ways and so many times that trying to come up with something new is a little tough. But the fact that people still keep making them without regard for what’s already come before and how it’s been done is a little confusing since one might think that some folks would finally decide to sit down and think up something that hasn’t been seen in a while, or hasn’t been seen before by this generation. Hey, it’s possible. 

This does feel like a bad copy of Trick ‘R Treat. 

In all honesty, this movie does have its own ideas and does use others that have been passed around for years, but the manner in which the stories play out does feel like a knockoff of Trick ‘R Treat. But at the same time, the movie has distanced itself enough from the 2007 cult classic by creating its own characters and its own storylines. The only problem is that none of them are particularly good, even if they can make a person laugh. 

A lover of great stories and epic tales, Tom is a fan of old and new-school ideas. As a novelist and a screenwriter, he enjoys promoting one story or another. With 18k+ articles and 40 novels written, Tom knows a little something about storytelling.

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Bad Candy review – Halloween horror anthology could well make you sick

Loosely connected characters from a drug dealer to a morgue attendant converge, in ever ickier circles

T his unapologetically juvenile, but not unentertaining, anthology film parcels together a bunch of vaguely intersecting horror stories, presented as if they were being told by a small town DJ (66.6 on the dial) named Chilly Billy (Corey Taylor). As Billy and his producer/sidekick take calls from listeners on Halloween, the regale their audience with seasonal stories of sick and twisted monsters that come dressed like nightmarish clowns. It’s Tales of the Mayhem You Damn Well Expect, Nay Insist Upon, Given It Has an 18 Certificate.

In the first, Kyra (Riley Sutton), a nice little girl dressed like a witch, is deprived of her rightful share of several pounds of sweets when her abusive redneck stepdad (Kevin Wayne) insists she has to stay at home. Fortunately, Kyra has occult graphic skills and can draw monsters and then conjure them to life to protect her. In later segments, the standard horror-movie morality that governs who gets sliced to ribbons or beheaded grows much murkier, with characters who don’t seem to have done much wrong at all being summarily tortured, violated or just made to have a lousy evening out.

Chuck (Michael Aaron Milligan), for instance, is a drug dealer, but one who gives a lot of his product away for free. It’s hard to work out how he deserves to be mauled by Bad Candy, the evil clown killer of the title. Likewise, poor Abbie (Haley Leary, one of the better actors here, though the competition isn’t fierce), a lovelorn morgue attendant, drops one of Chuck’s acid tabs and does a little necrophiliac partying with a corpse. Does that mean she deserves to end up locked in a freezer with a horde of leering zombies towards the end of her segment? And if you’re up in arms about the plot of the mini episodes being spoiled, then you really should be getting a life. Here’s a really big spoiler: pretty much everyone dies. Happy Halloween.

Bad Candy is released on 4 October on digital platforms.

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Movie Review: BAD CANDY

A gory halloween horror anthology.

BAD CANDY movie poster | ©2021 Dread

Rating: Not Rated Stars: Zach Galligan, Corey Taylor, Riley Sutton Writers: Scott B. Hansen & Desiree Connell Directors: Scott B. Hansen & Desiree Connell Distributor: Dread Release Date: September 10, 2021

BAD CANDY is a very mixed bag. There’s no question that the movie provides more stories than we might expect for a modestly-budgeted horror anthology. It also has good creature and gore effects. There’s a CREEPSHOW -comic book vibe here that is often fun, but sometimes unfortunately extends to the CGI, which doesn’t always match the stronger practical aspects.

The framing device for BAD CANDY is the Chilly Billy show on the small-town radio station 66.6 (what else?) FM in a small rural town. The two deejays having a good time with their Psychotronic Halloween programming are storyteller Bill (Corey Taylor) and his sidekick Paul (Zach Galligan). We’re in the present – everybody has cell phones – but there’s a timelessness to the enterprise.

The first, and perhaps best, tale features a tween (Riley Sutton) who’s an unusually talented artist. She wants to spend Halloween trick-or-treating with her friends, but her alcoholic stepfather puts a stop to it – unwisely, as it turns out.

Other segments range from one in a morgue that is impressively crazy to one that seems to be rooting for vigilante (and extreme) violence against drug addicts. Really? There’s what also might be a blame-the-victim-as-well-as-the-perp assault scenario, though this one is confusingly staged at its finale.

BAD CANDY should be praised for its awesomely scary clowns. Even people who aren’t normally perturbed by painted visages and grimaces will be unnerved; viewers who are already afraid of clowns may have to watch from between their fingers.

Writers/directors Scott B. Hansen & Desiree Connell don’t tie their various storylines into a cohesive whole, a la TRICK ‘R TREAT , where everything turns out to be connected to everything else. This doesn’t exactly work, because while two are clearly tied together, the rest never have a linking payoff.

BAD CANDY either goes from setting up little morality tales to freeform havoc with no explanation, or else the filmmakers think the last few segments are still morality tales. One is narratively messy, the other has an ick factor that has nothing to do with gore.

We might suppose that we’re meant to ponder the way BAD CANDY goes from having us easily cheer on the demises of unpleasant characters to finding ourselves in a moral quandary. However, there’s a concluding voiceover that implies how we’re meant to take what we’ve just seen. The filmmakers might have done better to keep this ambiguous.

There is no doubting the skill that goes into BAD CANDY ’s good qualities, and the al-libs/outtakes shown during the closing credits are genuinely funny.

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Bad Candy (2021)

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On Halloween night in New Salem, Radio DJs Chilly Billy (Corey Taylor) and Paul (Zach Galligan) tell a twisted anthology of terrifying local myths that lead to a grim end for small-town residents

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Bad Candy follows local Halloween stories of both myth and lessons learned in the community of New Salem. With its annual Psychotronic FM Halloween show, re-enactment radio DJs Chilly Billy and Paul weave the tales of the supernatural of years gone by. In this small town it's a grimy ending for most, but will a few good souls survive?

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Bad Candy Trailer Arrives for the Halloween Anthology Starring Zach Galligan and Corey Taylor

Bad Candy is a new Halloween anthology movie starring Zach Galligan and Slipknot's Corey Taylor is scheduled to be released in September.

Bad Candy (2020)

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‘Bad Candy’: Halloween Anthology Starring Zach Galligan and Slipknot’s Corey Taylor Releasing in September [Trailer]

We’ve learned this week that the Halloween-set horror anthology Bad Candy is coming to Select Theaters September 10 , On Demand September 14 , and Blu-ray October 12 !

From Digital Thunderdome,  Bad Candy  was written and directed by Scott B. Hansen  &  Desiree Connell , and  Zach Galligan  ( Gremlins ) stars alongside Slipknot’s  Corey Taylor .

“On Halloween night in New Salem, Radio DJs Chilly Billy (Corey Taylor) and Paul (Zach Galligan) tell a twisted anthology of terrifying local myths. Residents of the small-town experience horrifying paranormal encounters that lead them to a grim end.”

You can check out the trailer and release art below. This one looks a bit like  Trick ‘r Treat , promising different flavors of Halloween horror and various practical creatures. Could be fun!

Bad Candy is being released by Dread.

Writer in the horror community since 2008. Editor in Chief of Bloody Disgusting. Owns Eli Roth's prop corpse from Piranha 3D. Has four awesome cats. Still plays with toys.

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‘In a Violent Nature 2’ – Slasher Sequel is Officially On the Way

The buzzy slasher In a Violent Nature   carved up critical acclaim and an impressive run at the box office. Thanks to a surprise exclusive Letterboxd announcement and the “The Bold Voice of Contemporary Horror” panel at San Diego Comic-Con, sequel In a Violent Nature 2 is officially confirmed to be on the way courtesy of IFC Films and Shudder.

In a Violent Nature is now available on Digital/VOD outlets, including Amazon and Fandango at Home, if you need to catch up.

While no plot details have been revealed just yet, the very nature of the slasher’s killer means that he can be revived to slaughter again . Maybe even in outer spac e?

In the first film, “When a locket is removed from a collapsed fire tower in the woods that entombs the rotting corpse of Johnny, a vengeful spirit spurred on by a horrific 60-year old crime, his body is resurrected and becomes hellbent on retrieving it. The undead golem hones in on the group of vacationing teens responsible for the theft and proceeds to methodically slaughter them one by one in his mission to get it back – along with anyone in his way.”

Chris Nash wrote and directed In a Violent Nature .  Ry Barrett, Andrea Pavlovic, Cameron Love, Reece Presley, Liam Leone, Charlotte Creaghan, Lea Rose Sebastianis, Sam Roulston, Alexander Oliver, and  Lauren Taylor star in the slasher film.

Currently, Nash is listed as the writer on the sequel, though it’s assumed that he’ll return to direct as well.

Sequel producers include Peter Kuplowsky and Shannon Hanmer, and the first film’s writer and director, Chris Nash, will return as screenwriter. Emily Gotto, Nicholas Lazo and Samuel Zimmerman are overseeing development for Shudder.

“‘In a Violent Nature’ was originally conceived as a meta-sequel within a fictional slasher series, so we were always imagining mayhem beyond the scope of the original film,” Kuplowsky also said in a statement. “That we now have the opportunity to continue following Johnny on his restless walk has us feeling incredibly grateful to our incredible partners at IFC Films / Shudder who believed in Chris’ vision from day one. We are thrilled to return for a new chapter and are excited to deploy Johnny as a conduit to further experiments in the genre.”

I wrote in my review for Bloody Disgusting , “ In a Violent Nature may offer slasher thrills and a delightfully gory rampage across the wilderness, but Nash’s approach captures the carnage through ambient realism. It results in a fascinating arthouse horror experiment that plays more like a minimalist slice-of-life feature with a grim twist.”

While we wait for news on casting and plot, one thing is clear: Nash and prosthetic effects lead  Steven Kostanski ( Psycho Goreman ,  The Void ) will have the tough task of finding new ways to top that epic centerpiece kill .

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Halloween Horror Anthology 'Bad Candy' Starring COREY TAYLOR Now Available On Demand

SLIPKNOT and STONE SOUR frontman Corey Taylor stars in the Halloween-themed horror anthology movie "Bad Candy" , which arrived at select theaters on September 10 and is now available on demand.

Due on Blu-ray on September 28, "Bad Candy" was written and directed by Scott B. Hansen and Desiree Connell , and also features Zach Galligan , the star of the "Gremlins" and "Waxwork" franchises.

"Bad Candy" follows local Halloween stories of both myth and lessons learned in the community of New Salem. With its annual Psychotronic FM Halloween show, re-enactment radio DJs Chilly Billy (played by Taylor ) and Paul weave the tales of the supernatural of years gone by. In this small town, it's a grimy ending for most, but will a few good souls survive?

In an interview with FirstGlance Film Festivals , Taylor stated about "Bad Candy" : "It's a pretty cool little horror movie that has a linear story going through it, but it's really kind of made up of different short stories — almost like a 'Creepshow' kind of format, which is pretty cool. It's basically re-enactments of the stories that I'm actually telling on the radio, for the most part. It was a small-budget film done by some people who knew my manager, and who had worked with him before. And they asked if I wanted to be a part of it, and I was, like, 'Yeah, of course. I'm totally down.'"

Asked if there was anything in particular that drew him to the project, Corey said: "I've been a horror fan my whole life, and that's reflected in the movies that I've been in, the music that I make, the bands that I've contributed to. So it was just one more thing for me to kind of try and stretch. Any time I get a little bit part like that, I'm always down to try new stuff."

Taylor also talked about what it was like being on the "Bad Candy" set, saying: "I got to work with Zach Galligan , which was really rad. I was a big fan of his work when I was growing up, and getting to work with him and meet him, he's just such a cool dude that it just made it easy. We were there for two full days really kind of mapping out and filming everything. And we just rolled with it, man. We just had as much fun as we could, just making fun of each other."

As previously reported, Taylor also stars in another horror film called "Rucker" . It is described as a genre-bending terror film about a serial killer trucker who attempts to salvage family relationships. Olympic College film professor Amy Hesketh serves as the film's director and fellow OC professor Aaron Drane produced the film. Both are credited with co-writing the screenplay.

A longtime fan of horror films, Taylor was featured prominently in the "In Search Of Darkness" documentary, which came out in 2019.

Corey told Syfy network's "Metal Crush Mondays" how he first got into horror movies: "My mom took me to see the 'Buck Rogers [In The 25th Century]' movie when I was a kid. I must've been four or five, but the trailer before the movie was John Carpenter 's 'Halloween' . You've just got these incredible visuals, this sense of it's autumn, it's Halloween and there's just this dude in the background of every shot. I can remember as a five-year-old just being transfixed. Like, I suddenly didn't care about Buck Rogers . I think it was the one moment in my life that really galvanized my taste in what my young mind thought was cool. It was actually a couple years later that I actually got to watch it and to this day it's one of my favorite movies."

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Bad Newz Review: Vicky Kaushal is the only good news here

Bad newz movie review: the vicky kaushal film resembles an instagram filter that loses its sheen after first use. the surface is shimmery and looks glossy, but there is no material to sink your teeth into..

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• Bad Newz has released in theatres on July 19
• Vicky Kaushal's performance stands out
• The film suffers from a shoddy screenplay and weak jokes

Cast & Crew

Anand Tiwari

Vicky Kaushal Actor

Release Date: 19 Jul, 2024

The song topped the charts. We all made reels. Vicky Kaushal’s swag broke the internet with that hook step. Triptii Dimri, hot off the success of Animal, is paired not with one, but two male leads. What more can a film ask for? Well, perhaps a good scriptwriter and a director with vision? Vicky Kaushal, Ammy Virk, and Triptii Dimri’s trio suffer at the hands of a shoddy screenplay, exhaustingly long sitcom-style jokes, and background music that deserved a mute button.

Bad Newz had one of the best pre-release hypes for a film. The music struck a chord, and those sleek visuals of Vicky and Triptii were giving us 'take me away from my mundane existence' vibes. Sadly, the film stayed too true to its title and delivered bad news!

Akhil Chadha (Vicky Kaushal) is your typical Punjabi munda who is tailor-made to star in a Dharma film. He charms the pants off Saloni (Tripti Dimri), an ambitious chef, and they get married. (Spoiler alert) But their values clash, and they soon separate. Enter Gurbir (Ammy Virk), who offers Saloni more than just solace, and things soon go from 'just friends' to 'it’s complicated.' What follows is a bizarre pregnancy track that leads to a climax which makes very little sense.

Bad Newz resembles an Instagram filter that loses its sheen after first use. The surface is shimmery and looks glossy, but there is no material to sink your teeth into. The writing is shallow and flat. The punches never land. The film even tries satire and parody, but the gags are so weak that they lose air before taking off. Some of the lines feel like leftovers from a prime-time TV laughter challenge audition.

The wafer-thin silver lining to the film is Vicky Kaushal. You feel for the man because he’s going all out and saying those dated lines with 100 per cent belief. Not once does he fall out of character or look defeated by the terrible dialogues and one-liners thrown at him. He’s looking his best and has that superstar glow-up, which we haven’t seen in a very long time.

Tripti needs to rewatch her performance in 'Bulbul' to perhaps course-correct and figure out what route she wants to take from here on. Having the potential can only come in handy if you are vehemently opposing substandard material offered to you. Some of the scenes with Vicky and Ammy stand out only because of their banter and chemistry.