¡QUÉ HORROR! 2017
Candidate #14
(September 2015)
"We've come to the place where we joke about the idea of the Devil. With
the horns and the tail and all that. But that is Satan’s Lie. To distract us
from the reality of who He is.”
Writer/director Sean Byrne was last ‘round these parts when his feature debut, The Loved Ones, nabbed the Aussie Horror Runner-Up slot on the ¡Qué horror! 2011 rundown.
Writer/director Sean Byrne was last ‘round these parts when his feature debut, The Loved Ones, nabbed the Aussie Horror Runner-Up slot on the ¡Qué horror! 2011 rundown.
He’s
back, with his brutally metal follow-up, The
Devil’s Candy.
Here,
Byrne takes the “a family’s hopes for a new life are shattered when they
encounter the darkness that comes along with the new house they just bought”
set-up and serves up a disturbing look at a world where evil is insidiously
ubiquitous, where a prominent art gallery is called Belial (as in “Now that you’re
being represented by Belial, it’s time for you to start getting used to nice
things.”) and has an employee named Mara (as per the Buddhist demon).
Byrne
gathers an interestingly effective cast here, which includes Shiri Appleby (who’s
come a long way from Roswell’s Liz), Ethan
Embry (who’s come an even longer way
from Empire Records’ lovable goofus
Mark), and the creeptastic Pruitt Taylor Vince.
There
are also brief, but memorable appearances by Leland Orser (whose Father David
Gideon lays on the film’s central thesis via a “Thought for the Day”) and Tony
Amendola (taking a break from playing Once
Upon a Time’s Geppetto to embody Leonard of Belial).
So,
yeah, let’s all raise those horns and savor The
Devil’s Candy, as Sean Byrne continues to show us just how wickedly serious
he is about his horror…
“I have to feed Him
children… ‘cause children are His candy.”
(The Devil’s Candy OS’ courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com.)
