Revenge movies have been a popular feature in mainstream Hollywood for decades, and it’s a genre that has often never shied away from controversy. There have been countless horror movies where a seemingly normal guy, or a full blown creep, lures an unsuspecting female victim back to his place (which is often a creepy lair, or a dungeon, naturally). The genre has seen movies emerge from both the small underground scene to big budget Hollywood pictures. However, some of the most intriguing and memorable revenge films have been the entries that subvert the usual man-tortures-woman traditions of the slasher genre. Over the decades we’ve seen movies such as 1995’s Boy Meets Girl, Lady Vengeance from 2005, 1999’s superb Audition, with its wince inducing torture scenes wonderfully subverting what at first starts as a gentle romance, in a way. Of course, we also have the likes of Kill Bill 1 & 2 and even cult classics like Russ Meyer’s 1965 exploitation flick Faster Pussycat Kill Kill has elements of revenge in its tale of three dancers going on a killing spree in California. However, it’s a movie from 2005 that we’re focusing on in this episode, which features themes of online safety for young people that are an increasing concern nowadays; the well received and thought provoking Hard Candy, directed by David Slade. The film follows a 32-year-old photographer, Jeff, who welcomes 14-year-old Hayley, with whom he has been seductively chatting online, into his house. However, she believes that he’s a pedophile and intends to punish him. Online safety was something the media frequently discussed in the early noughties, so it was only a matter of time before a movie was made that dived into the subject. It’s not an easy subject matter to take on, so had director Slade managed to create a horror movie that managed to entertain, shock and provoke thought among audiences when it was released? Let’s find out here on WTF happened to Hard Candy.
Producer David Higgins first had the idea for the movie when he saw a news story on the American television newsmagazine 20/20, about Japanese girls who lured older businessmen to a specific location, with the promise of meaningful conversation, only to then assault and mug them with a gang of other girls. This led Higgins to ponder the question, “What if the person you expect to be the predator is not who you expect it to be? What if it’s the other person?”. Audiences love movies that are able to subvert their expectations, and with the idea gradually becoming something that could work in a mainstream marketplace, Higgins approached writer Brian Nelson to fast-track a treatment, followed by the finished script.
The pair then approached David Slade to take on the directing hot-seat, and he made his debut with the movie. Like a lot of successful directors, Slade forged a career in filmmaking by directing some cool music videos for the likes of Fatboy Slim, Stone Temple Pilots, Tori Amos, Muse, Stereophonics and System of a Down. The only other official project he’d worked on before Hard Candy, that wasn’t a music video, was a short film called Do Geese See God. I would imagine…they probably don’t. So, it was maybe a slightly risky move to trust a movie with such a controversial narrative, to a director with little to no experience of making mainstream theatrical movies. However, Slade was onboard, and he had the opportunity to show that he could successfully make the difficult transition from music video director, to a more mainstream filmmaker.
With the script not requiring too many elaborate set-ups, the movie was shot in just eighteen days, mostly in sequence and largely by using a soundstage. There was also more of an emphasis on telling the story through creative sound and production design. The soundtrack only features nine minutes of music in its 104 minute runtime, with heavy breathing and other, more atmospheric ambient sounds, making up the bulk of the diegetic audio in the movie. There was also very little dubbing required, with only a handful of lines modified in post-production.
One of the most striking images that’s used in the movie’s marketing campaign is the red, hooded sweatshirt that Elliot Page’s character, Hayley, wears while standing in a giant bear trap. Surprisingly, this wasn’t a deliberate creative choice by the production team, despite it being perfect imagery to sell the movie. It was actually a serendipitous wardrobe choice by the creative team, who only realized how fitting it was later on in the process of marketing the movie. Naturally the international marketing made the most of the fortuitous wardrobe choice, and a great example is the tagline on the Japanese site for the film which reads: “Red Hood traps the Wolf in his own game.” The title of the movie also went through several different incarnations before Hard Candy was ultimately chosen. Writer Nelson’s early working title ideas during the scriptwriting process were Vendetta and another, which would have had guys the world over wincing; Snip Snip. Producer Higgins asked for a title with a “sugar and spice combination and a mixture of harsh roughness, innocence, and vulnerability”. So, Hard Candy it was!
Casting in any movie is always absolutely key, and because of the nature of Hard Candy’s narrative, finding protagonists who could successfully be convincing as a possible paedophile, and the young girl looking to punish him, was potentially very tricky. For the role of Hayley, the production team turned to Ellen Page, who is now Elliot Page of course, and, as I’ll discuss in the review, it’s a great piece of casting. Equally difficult to cast was the character of Jeff which went to the excellent Patrick Wilson. The actor had already featured in a handful of TV shows and movies, including the likes of Angels in America, The Alamo and The Phantom of the Opera, but he was still a relative newcomer to mainstream audiences. It was perhaps a risk then, to take on the role of a guy who had been accused of some truly terrible crimes. Rounding out the cast is the superb character actor, Sandra Oh as Judy Tokuda, plus Jennifer Holmes as Janelle Rogers.
Is it possible for any movie to create sympathy for a guy in his 30s who spends his spare time trolling around the internet looking for underage girls? Plus, more importantly and more to the point – should it really be trying to? Well, they’re the questions being asked of the audience by Hard Candy, a tightly crafted and effective horror movie that attempts to evoke sympathy for both predator and prey. The movie opens with an image of a computer screen showing an instant-message conversation between Patrick Wilson’s Jeff and Elliot Page’s Hayley, who have been flirting online. We next see them meeting face-to-face for the first time in a coffee shop where their conversation continues to be as flirtatious as it is secretly coded, with hidden meaning behind every carefully written sentence in Brian Nelson’s script. They eventually end up back at Jeff’s place where it’s revealed he’s a photographer with an unnerving interest in young girls, as proven by the photos of what seem to be underrage, semi-clothed girls hanging on his walls. However, before Jeff can take their relationship any further, Hayley turns the tables on him that sets both Jeff, and the viewer up for a very uncomfortable experience.
I won’t spoil exactly what the rest of the movie delivers in terms of Hayley’s retribution, her motives and also the exact nature of what she plans to do to Jeff, because if you’ve managed to stay spoiler free from the movie it’s worth going in cold and letting it all unfold. Suffice it to say that the guys watching the movie will be the ones squirming in their seats when the third act kicks in. Director Slade ratchets up the tension expertly, with just a hint of the torture Jeff is enduring and by the end of the sequence it almost makes the viewer wonder whether his actions deserve the punishment he’s enduring. Hard Candy isn’t a pleasant or an easy movie to watch but it’s a very accomplished horror / thriller in its own right. Page is excellent as the vengeful Hayley; going from flirty, innocent and curious towards the beginning of the movie, to cold and calculating towards the end. There are some character decisions that don’t entirely make sense, plus some of the dialogue could have been clunky in the wrong hands, but these are minor complaints. Also, the movie loses some of its tension and becomes a little less scary once Hayley’s true motivations become clear, but for the most part, revisiting Hard Candy has been highly rewarding, albeit in a very uncomfortable way.
The movie premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival with a midnight screening, however audiences had to wait until the site’s failing Dolby Surround system was repaired before it began. It was given a limited release in two theaters in Los Angeles and New York on April 14th, 2006 and achieved the highest per-screen average in the top 50 with almost $30 million per theater. The movie also had an international release and by the end of its run it had grossed a reported total of $8.3 million. The movie also managed to snag some awards recognition, with Page, who was presenting as female at the time, picking up Best Actress at the Austin Film Critics Association Awards, while it also won best film, director, actress and cinematography at the Malaga Film Festival in 2006.
Critically, the movie was met with a largely positive response. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 67% of 147 critic reviews are positive, and the average rating is 6.4/10. The critics consensus reads: “Disturbing, controversial, but entirely engrossing, Hard Candy is well written with strong lead performances, especially that of newcomer Elliot Page. A movie that stays with the viewer long after leaving the theater.” Roger Ebert rated the film 3.5/4 stars, writing “There is undeniable fascination in the situation as it unfolds…Seen as a film, seen as acting and direction, seen as just exactly how it unfolds on the screen, Hard Candy is impressive and effective.” The UK’s Empire Magazine called it a “cracking little thriller” and Variety praised Page’s performance. However, The Chicago Reader’s Jonathan Rosenbaum wasn’t too keen on the themes of torture and mutilation, saying that, “I’d rather have this movie obliterated from my memory”.
At the end of the day, Hard Candy isn’t a movie to be enjoyed necessarily, at least not in the traditional sense. It’s certainly a difficult watch in places, but it does a great job of highlighting an issue that was more than just an increasing concern at the time, and is certainly a prominent issue in today’s more modern digital world. However, the most important opinion we always love to hear is from YOU guys, so what’s your take on Hard Candy? Did the filmmakers create a horror / slash thriller that raises important questions about online safety? Or was it just a touch too uncomfortable to sit through for the most part? Let me know in the comments and I’ll see you wonderful gore-hounds next time. Thanks for watching!
A couple of the previous episodes of What Happened to This Horror Movie? can be seen below. To see more, head over to our JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!