''Candy Land'' is a 2022 American

horror thriller Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre. ...

film written and directed by

John Swab John Swab is a film director, screenwriter, and producer born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Film career His first feature ''Let Me Make You a Martyr,'' was released in 2017, and starred Mark Boone Junior, Marilyn Manson, Sam Quartin and Niko Nicote ...

and starring

Olivia Luccardi Olivia Luccardi (born May 17, 1989) is an American actress and producer. She is known for her roles as Alice Woods in Syfy's horror anthology series '' Channel Zero: Butcher's Block'' and as Yara Davis in the supernatural thriller film ''It Fol ...

, Sam Quartin, Eden Brolin, Owen Campbell, Virginia Rand and

William Baldwin William Joseph Baldwin (born February 21, 1963), Note: While birthplace is routinely listed as Massapequa, that town has no hospital, and brother Alec Baldwin was born in nearby Amityville, which does. known also as Billy Baldwin,is an America ...

Plot

A seemingly naive and devout young woman navigates her way through the underground world of truck stop sex workers known as "lot lizards".

Cast

* Eden Brolin as Riley *

as Sheriff Rex *

as Remy * Owen Campbell as Levi *

Guinevere Turner Guinevere Jane Turner is an American actress, screenwriter, and film director. She has written such films as ''American Psycho'' and ''The Notorious Bettie Page'' and played the lead role of the dominatrix Tanya Cheex in '' Preaching to the Perv ...

as Nora *Sam Quartin as Sadie *Virginia Rand as Liv

Release

The film premiered at the

Locarno Film Festival The Locarno Film Festival is an annual film festival, held every August in Locarno, Switzerland. Founded in 1946, the festival screens films in various competitive and non-competitive sections, including feature-length narrative, documentary, s ...

in August 2022. It was also screened at the

New York City Horror Film Festival The New York City Horror Film Festival is an international film festival based in New York City that screens films from the horror genre. It was founded by Michael J. Hein in 2001. It takes place each year in New York City for a week in November ...

on December 1, 2022. In November 2022, it was announced that

Quiver Distribution Quiver Distribution is an American-Canadian film production and film distribution company founded in 2019 by Berry Meyerowitz and Jeff Sackman. The company is best known for releasing films '' The Fanatic'', ''Running with the Devil ''Running wit ...

acquired North American distribution rights to the film, which was released in theaters and on demand on January 6, 2023.

Reception

The film has a 77% rating on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

based on 22 reviews. Meagan Navarro of

Bloody Disgusting Bloody Disgusting is an American multi-media company, which began as a horror genre-focused news site/website specializing in information services that covered various horror medias, including: film, television, video games, comics, and music. ...

awarded the film three and a half skulls out of five. Mary Beth McAndrews of

Dread Central Dread Central is an American website founded in 2006 that is dedicated to horror news, interviews, and reviews. It covers horror films, comics, novels, and toys. Dread Central has won the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award for Best Website f ...

awarded the film four and a half stars out of five. Christian Zilko of

IndieWire IndieWire (sometimes stylized as indieWIRE or Indiewire) is a film industry and review website that was established in 1996. The site's focus was predominantly independent film, although its coverage has grown to "to include all aspects of Hollyw ...

graded the film a B+. Michael Talbot-Haynes of ''

Film Threat ''Film Threat'' is an online film review publication, and earlier, a national magazine that focused primarily on independent film, although it also reviewed videos and DVDs of mainstream films, as well as Hollywood movies in theaters. It first ...

'' rated the film a 9.5 out of 10. Noel Murray of the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'' gave the film a positive review and wrote, "It’s possible Swab made this film just to tell a story about the more compassionate side of prostitution. If so, the movie’s guilty-pleasure thrills are just a bonus." Jon Mendelsohn of ''

Comic Book Resources ''Comic Book Resources'', also known by the initialism CBR, is a website dedicated to the coverage of comic book–related news and discussion. History Comic Book Resources was founded by Jonah Weiland in 1995 as a development of the Kingdom Co ...

'' also gave the film a positive review and wrote, "''Candy Land'' succeeds at juggling multiple genres at once, resulting in a memorable, layered, and bloody slow-burn of a horror flick." Beatrice Loayza of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' also gave the film a positive review and wrote, "''Candy Land'' is standard grindhouse fare(...)though not without its fair share of pleasurable nastiness."

References

External links

* * {{Rotten Tomatoes, candy_land 2022 horror thriller films 2020s American films 2020s English-language films American horror thriller films Films about prostitution in the United States Films directed by John Swab Films scored by David Sardy Quiver Distribution films