‘Sharp Candy’ Halloween Anthology is Tasty Horror Nostalgia [Review]
Following its world premiere invitational screening at the 2019 Halloween International Film Festival, the awesome new anthology series Sharp Candy is now available to stream on Amazon, full of treats and capturing all the warm nostalgia and retro vibes of Halloween and horror from days gone by.
The series’ first season includes four episodes that act as independent entries, but are intermingled with each other through various references and connections, and they all take place on the same Halloween night.
In the first episode, “Janey’s Night”, a young woman is terrorized while home alone on October 31st, beginning when a mysterious trick or treater in a creepy witch mask leaves a threatening note. As the tension mounts, a crazy clown named Baron Von Laugho, played by series creator/director Dylan R. Nix, arrives outside Janey’s window. Are the witch and the clown connected? You’ll have to watch the other episodes to find out.
The second episode, “The Pawnbroker”, centers on a lonely pawn shop owner who has a Halloween sale, though it will be more than just his prices that get slashed, as a cult from the cornfields soon shows up looking for a new costume for their aging leader, the Lord of the Harvest.
In “Tohell Road”, a deaf young woman and her brother are on their way to a Halloween party when a short cut leads them straight into a hellish nightmare where Baron Von Laugho returns and really gets to shine.
Nix’s performance is delightfully demented and legitimately frightening. His monologue about how there are too many killer clowns around these days is pure meta genius, as it’s basically the director speaking directly to his audience, as his back is turned to the deaf girl and she can’t hear him anyway. When Laugho pulls out his gruesomely homemade jump rope, the gore hounds will be the ones laughing, as Nix pushes the visuals to a new extreme.
In the season’s fourth episode, “American Trickers”, two mischievous kids go out for a Halloween night of egging their teachers’ houses, but find themselves in the middle of something far more disturbing, as the clues dropped in the previous episodes all come together in a satisfying final reveal.
Every frame of each episode is immersed in Halloween atmosphere and stands on its own as a fun short, but when seen as a whole, they intertwine in effective ways that keep it all set in the same cinematic universe. The synth-heavy soundtrack and series theme recall the best of John Carpenter with a strong 1980s flavor.
This is old school, zero-budget horror at its best, and quite a tasty collection of twisted tales for Halloween lovers to devour. I highly recommend that you check this series out today and add it to your annual October watchlist.
Sharp Candy is available to stream now on Amazon Prime Video, and after you watch it, be sure to check out my introduction from the Halloween Film Festival and our Q&A with Dylan Nix and producer/actor Chloe Walker in the videos below.
*Paid link: As an Amazon Associate, we may earn a commission from qualifying purchases.
For more Halloween news, follow @HalloweenDaily.
