Candy Land

It's interesting that this came out the same year as X, a movie that has a very healthy and progressive attitude towards sexuality and sex workers. X sought to humanize its aspiring pornographers while also celebrating their freedom to explore their sexual side, all while trying to make an "elevated" slasher movie (lord, how I hate that phrase), which mirrors how the characters in it are trying to make a more artistically-driven porno. I love X, don't get me wrong, it's my #2 movie of 2022, but it is, for all intents and purposes, putting lipstick on a pig. Its homages to slashers past and fancy camera work and deep investment in character development can't hide the fact that it is still a slasher movie above all else. A fantastic one, one of the best I've ever seen, the kind you could show to non-slasher fans and they might enjoy it, but it's still a slasher. Candy Land, it could be said, is X's more honest cousin. It isn't trying to make art out of what has long been considered an artless genre, mainly because it isn't a slasher. It also, as I've seen in a lot of reviews, isn't a grindhouse movie. It takes elements from slashers and grindhouse movies to tell its story, but that's the extent of it. It borrows, but it does not imitate. Candy Land is about four prostitutes at a truck stop along Route 66, three young women and a young man. Candy Land doesn't glamorize prostitution -- there's no Julia Roberts dressed in the best clothing a wardrobe department can provide, and no perfect make-up either. There's crooked teeth, blemishes on the skin, and clothing that looks like it came from the local thrift shop. The act of prostitution is portrayed as basically as it can be: a transaction between two people, one looking to get sexual gratification with another human being, and another willing to provide it that can emotionally divorce themselves from the intimacy of the act. But the four prostitutes are treated as human beings. Each of them has a backstory we get glimpses of, and each has feelings and wants and fears and hopes. I'm not going to say this is some Darren Aronofsky character study, but it's not far off in that it treats these characters as human beings first and foremost. Selling sex is what they do to pay the rent, but it isn't who they are. Anyway, into this dynamic come two elements: a young woman named Remy, who is cast out of a doomsday cult, and a killer that is murdering johns and sex workers alike. Candy Land's story unfolds as Remy integrates into the group, while someone is killing johns and, eventually, members of the group. I said before that anybody calling this a slasher or a grindhouse movie is dead wrong, and now I'll explain why. In both of those genres, exploitation, titillation, and cheap thrills are the point of the movie. Hell, they're all the movie has to offer, really. I love Friday The 13th and Halloween, but there isn't a single one I can point to with profound character work or a thoughtful exploration of ideas or themes. Without getting into spoilers -- and I really, strongly encourage anyone interested in this to go in as cold as a winter's morning in Alaska -- Candy Land does far, far more than just provide nudity and gore. Yes, both are on display in abundance, but there's almost always purpose to it all, believe it or not. Even main character Riley's long shower scene, which pans up and down her body, uses body language to show some emotional turbulence that comes into play later on. I've also seen criticism of the violence, that for a slasher it's all too repetitive, and that also misses the point; this isn't Michael Myers impaling co-eds with shotguns or Jason Voorhees splitting someone in half with a machete. The kills are simple because they're realistic. It's what the killer can accomplish, what a real person could accomplish. And once the murders get past the random johns and start happening to people we know, having showy death scenes would miss the point entirely. Candy Land doesn't want the viewer to take joy in these murders, especially the characters we know. The killer is disturbed, bordering on sympathetic, in their own twisted way. Candy Land isn't for the feint of heart, and it isn't a good time; it is bleak, it is raw, it is unflinching, but it isn't unfair or unrealistic. It just won't hold your hand or give you the dumb fun you're expecting when you read the synopsis, which is honestly what I expected. I'm happy with what I got. Well, happy isn't the word, because Candy Land does not leave one with a sense of happiness. Satisfied? Impressed? Something along those lines. The point is, your experience with Candy Land is all dependent on how you approach it. If you're hoping for "X, but with hookers at a truck stop", you're going to be disappointed. If you're coming to Candy Land for the visceral thrill of naked women and carnage, you've come to the wrong movie. Go watch The Mutilator if that's what you're looking for. Candy Land is not here to excite. I mentioned Aronofsky before, and it's got shades of that, as well as a David Fincher thriller. It's not quite either of those, but it definitely takes inspiration from them, and synthesizes them into something different. Something brutally honest and unafraid to be unpolished.