I sat on Candy Land all last year… thinking, yeah, maybe it’s a bit of sleazy fun but it also came out in 2022 and I want to watch 2023 films (or some such goony logic). But it’s 2024 now and I’m watching “older” films waiting for new ones to fill my Cult of the New chalice so I figured I’d give it a look. And I should have watched it sooner.

Candy Land is about the sex workers at a truck stop… and the slasher who loves to kill them.

The first two acts are fine. The flick earns its right to be called a seedy, sordid, sleazy little exploitation film with eye-opening levels of nudity (mostly for shock value since it subsides later in the film). It’s about prostitutes’ doing their day-to-day with all sorts of terrible, horrible, awful, no good men. In fact, the prostitutes are the only likable characters in the film.

And their likability surprised me as the killer starts to pick them off. I was surprised by how upsetting some of their deaths were. This isn’t like a typical slasher film where the kills are “fun”. There’s some real efficient (if poorly planned) murder that didn’t make me feel good.

The rules of a slasher are that you kind of root for the slasher, right? Let’s see those creative and elaborate kills. Until the very end with the Final Girl where your allegiances change. Not so this movie, not for me. And then the end is such a mix of emotions that left me staring blankly as the credits rolled to the tune of Don’t Dream it’s Over.

This movie left me… despondent. Unhappy. In a good way… so many movies wash over me like they didn’t even happen. Maybe that’s just me… who else would be moved by friggin’ Candy Land?

Score: 86