Credited cast:

Patrick Wilson .... Jeff Kohlver

Ellen Page .... Hayley Stark

Sandra Oh .... Judy Tokuda

Odessa Rae .... Janelle Rogers (as Jennifer Holmes)

Gilbert John .... Nighthawks Clerk
(more)

First off, "Hard Candy" is a horror film. Very uncomfortable to watch from minute zero through minute 95, Hard Candy spends minutes zero through sixty looking casually through Jeff Kohlver's apartment for an item of personal history to psychologically demolish him as he sits helplessly hogtied. Doing the searching -- 14-year-old ingenue Hayley Stark who drugs her victim after he has invited her up to his apartment for a freelance modeling photo shoot. He met her on the Internet where he carries on very disturbing conversations.

Horror films fearlessly and unflinchingly force us to confront areas of our psyche we'd rather really were left to scab over, remain away from light. "Hard Candy" essentially puts two deeply unpleasant people in a box for ninety minutes to scrape each other psychologically -- and with a scalpel. For those who haven't put one and two together regarding our photographer: he's either a pedophile or pederast. On the surface he seems just as invisible as any other mid-30s follicle-challenged man out there. Around his apartment and up on his walls hang photographs of the women (all children) he's photographed. Hints and allegations abound (mostly from the mouth of Ms. Stark) that he's also done worse.

The story told in untangled terms: Jeff has met Hayley online, has had a few conversations. Knows she's underage, and reading the IMs they share may want you to shower far away from human contact. They meet, they talk about Goldfrapp and other popular people and topics. He invites her to his place for a photo shoot. She drugs him, hogties him first to a chair and then, later on, stretches him rack-like on a kitchen table

Our civilization is a thin veil hiding a bony mask. On the surface we say such a man "needs treatment" or perhaps in its most stern outward expression would say "he needs jail time with a guy named Bubba". Ms. Stark, however, gets to have ninety minutes with him and she spends the better part of an hour probing around for the secret she knows she'll eventually find. "Hard Candy" uses tight closeups and bright blurring dissolves and fade-ins (somewhat like a blending of surgical lights and a camera flash) to heighten the sense of one's skin being stripped away psychologically to bare essence.

You will squirm. You will not want to watch and you will not be comfortable with yourself watching saying "hey, these people are both monsters but who's to say I'd be different here?" "I'd say the same things as this guy, and he really believes what he's saying." or "I'd do the same thing if I were her." Horror makes us confront that which is scary and dark within ourselves

And since Hard Candy maintains this excruciating level of intensity and does not vary in its tone for 75 of it's 90 minutes, I judge it a horror film. Horror stripped of the camp. It does not take place in a dungeon. It takes place next door to you. Or perhaps in the room just down the hall. The villain does not wear a mask and carry a knife. He doesn't have elaborately planned devices. She wears braces and has knobby knees and for a while there in the beginning she's looking for some secret, she knows it's there, but does not know what it is.

In ninety minutes Hard Candy blasts away the barnacles and the crust that have grown around horror films in the past five years. Devoid of bloodshed of any kind. The apartment, in fact, is quite "neat". Tidy. Well appointed. A real apartment in your place. Could be your apartment.

As a viewer watching her and listening to her go about this -- I felt like someone was doing full exploratory body surgery on me without anaesthetic. I'm thinking "What is she looking for/I don't want to know!/Is she going to find it oh my GOD she's going to find...I don't want to know."

Kudos to the fearless and nervy performaces of Patrick Wilson and Ellen Page. Especially Ellen Page who's earning much deserved acclaim. The best horror film villain since Dr. Lecter, I would ask her two simple questions of her performance "where did THAT come from? Can we have more of that?" Such preternatural poise, control that you have to watch her. I also reach out a brief -- but wary -- congrats to the director and screenwriter. Even though they make a very slick reference to one of my horror faves "Peeping Tom" -- Why wary?

I never listen to audio commentary by the director or actors anyway, but in this case I especially don't want to. "Hard Candy" when it comes off the new release wall will NOT be put in the "ghetto" horror film section between Gremlins and Hellraiser. It'll sit there between "The English Patient" and "Ingmar Bergman's..." Made and marketed as an indie film, particulary of the "two people in a closed space" variety (not unlike Richard Linklater's "Tape"), I'm certain the director will use all these grad school terms and talk about his "vision" or how it was "conceptualized". I don't want to ruin the feeling that I just want to go up and hug the guy and say "thank you for illuminating again the basics of horror films." Too often there there lies a slight gulf between what one has accomplished with something and what one THINKS one has. Hard Candy is great horror, and I don't want to harm the illusion.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD