User Reviews

16 year old Candy Philips (played by 21 year old Susan Sennett) is kidnapped by a group of psychos--Jessie (Tiffany Bolling), REAL sick Alan (Brad David) and Eddy (Vincent Martorano). They contact her father and demand jewels in return for her...but her dad won't do it. Things unravel completely from there. There's also a subplot about an autistic child being verbally and physically abused by his mom.

This is clearly not for everybody. it was a complete ripoff of "Last House on the Left" but it's much better than that film. "Last" was sick, disgusting and badly made. "Candy" is sick but not as vicious or cruel as "Last". Also it's MUCH better made. It has a good script with many twists and turns, all the acting is good (especially by Bolling and Martorano) and the last 10 minutes or so go barreling out of control. This is unique in there's not one likable character in it...even Candy got on my nerves! It's disturbing and sometimes brutal but a very good grindhouse film. I give it a 7.

This flat out must be one of the best virtually unknown and unseen films of the entire 70's. I recommend this to any film lover who can handle this type of twisted fare. The film is unique in multiple ways and the story is actually quite competent; That in itself is rare for films of this sort. I don't want to say too much about this film and give any of the great surprises away. If cult crime films interest you, do yourself a favor and check this out! 7.5/10.

THE CANDY SNATCHERS is among the proudest components to the druthers of 70s drive-in cinema, a smart, slick production that's well mechanized and laden with dodgy allure...a highly original exploitation mini-masterpiece, and a classic of its kind.

With a turbo-thrust pace, this nail-biter of a kidnapping/ransom story is steeped in noir, and presents three appallingly churlish amateur criminals intent on purloining a generous haul of diamonds from the shady stepfather of kidnapped young Candy(an appealing pubescent girlie who spends the entire film in various stages of bondage wearing a Catholic schoolgirl uniform). Plans run afoul, however, as the plot twists and shifts like a roller-coaster flying hot off its rails. A mute little boy is a key sideline character whose odd presence seems entirely superfluous until the unforgettable, head-smacking climax.

You do NOT want to miss this one.

8.5/10

What an oddball mixture we have here. The plot concerns 3 inept but vicious thugs including a very attractive blonde who kidnap a teenage schoolgirl in order collect a half a million bucks from her father as with all of these schemes things just don't go to plan, stupidity and mayhem follow. This movie has a look and feel of a 70s made for TV thriller punctured with scenes of violence and comic relief straight from the grind house " how to make a movie guidebook " The characters are all as amoral as you can get with the exception of Candy and a little mute boy!!! The pace of the movie moves a little too slow in parts particularly in the middle section but picks momentum big time during the almost " jaw dropping " conclusion. In fact the conclusion is what has set this movie apart ( I think ) from many other similar but easily forgettable movies from the period. It shows several shocking, intelligent and believable plot twists, with the last being the most shocking of all. This movie isn't as visceral as Last House on the Left or as controversial as Fight for Your Life but has more than a good deal of intelligence and directorial talent than most of the 70s offerings, So check it out. And with the recent Subversive DVD release of this not quite a classic but... It is no more one of those " lost gems "

This is one film that unfortunately seems to be doomed to obscurity. However, it is a goodie, albeit a nasty one. Poor Candy is kidnapped by three losers, who are involved with incest, drugs, murder, rape, and now kidnapping! This film is very lurid and sleazy (as many 'gone' '70's films were), yet has a great plot involving a number of fun twists, and is well acted. Parts of the film are clear precursors to Tarantino (ie Reservoir Dogs), and David Lynch (the idea of the family being the source of anxiety and horror). Little Sean's mother could have easily fitted into 'Twin Peaks'. Worth hunting this one out.

"The Candy Snatchers" is a cheap film that is a bit better than I expected. It's also far sleazier and dark than I expected--and it is definitely not to everyone's taste!

The film begins with three losers kidnapping a high school girl named Candy. The plan is to force her father to give them jewels from his store in order to ransom her back to the safety of the family. The problem is that mom is a total drunk and the step-dad couldn't care less about the girl. Heck, if she dies, that just means more money for him! So, although they anticipate an easy and quick deal, the crooks have picked the wrong family and the film is a tiny bit reminiscent of "Ruthless People" but with absolutely no comedy whatsoever...in fact it's sort of an anti-comedy! Why do I say this? Well, it's a very sick and sleazy sort of film in which just about everyone is totally awful! There are two rapes (one of which is awfully brutal and graphic), child abuse, violence galore and an ending that is among the darkest and most nihilistic I've ever seen. It really isn't my sort of film, as it's just too dark-- but I can respect what the filmmakers made---a well-crafted cheapie film about some amazingly soul-less scum.

By the way, the IMDb summary says that the little kid is autistic. Perhaps, as he is not verbal, but he shows few other signs of autism--maintaining eye contact and interacting with the world in a very non-autistic manner. Now I am not saying he was normal and his family was certainly awful...but autistic...probably not.

Of course this by no means is a great movie but within its genre it still works out as something great and enjoyable to watch!

Actually, when you start over-analyzing it, it's a poorly made movie but with this sort of movies you shouldn't read too much into stuff like that. They are made for entertainment and simple entertainment does this movie provide! It actually is one of the better exploitation movies out there to watch, which already makes this a must-see for the fans of the genre.

I say it's an exploitation flick but for normal exploitation movie standards, this movie is quite tame. There is a minimal amount of violence and there is some nudity and rape but nothing too graphic or hard to watch. It's more an exploitation flick with the setup of its story and characters and just overall atmosphere and tone of the movie.

It's hard to say why this movie works out so well really, since the story really isn't anything special or original and the movie can be quite random at times. I guess it simply works out as a good movie because it has a good flow to it and plenty of variety. It can be a slow movie at times but it never becomes a boring one. Maybe it also helps that the movie is being so simplistic with its story. It makes the movie pleasant to follow.

With these sort of movies it very rarely matters that they are cheap looking ones, with bad picture and sound quality and some bad actors in it. All of this only adds to the charm and appeal of these sort of movies. And this movie is very appealing and easy to like as well. If you simply want some good, fast, simple entertainment, exploitation flicks often are the ones to go to and this movie is perfect for that as well!

Strangely enough I also liked the fact that this movie featured no music in it. I don't know, it sort of made some of the sequences and moments in this movie stand out and made things ominous and more direct, like straight into your face, without any needless distractions to them.

A really enjoyable movie within its sort!

7/10

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The story line could have worked but this film is definitely (out) dated for a 1970's retro kidnapping/crime film and unfortunately for its viewers, it is by no means a memorable crime film. The acting was mediocre at best which is why we have never seen any of this films stars subsequent film careers catapult to successes. Rather, their film careers fizzled out except for maybe actress Tiffany Bolling who at least had a few cameo appearances in a string of various television series before ultimately fading away 'a la Gloria Swanson.

I cannot recommend this film to anyone who enjoys a good crime film because this one fails on all counts.

A mediocre 5 out of 10 IMDB rating.

"The Candy Snatchers" perfectly embodies why so many fans of the horror & cult genre worship the 70's decade! This is a hard-boiled and intense film, with a shocking and totally unpredictable storyline, utterly deranged characters and it literally doesn't take the slightest notice of political correctness and/or human emotions. Director Guerdon Trueblood and scriptwriter Bryan Gindoff take us on a wild & trashy 70's ride, covering controversial topics such as child abuse, mental handicaps, rape of minors, live burial, Vietnam traumas and brutal murders committed by unusual characters! A trio of ruthless thugs develops a seemingly waterproof plan to get rich with diamonds very fast. By kidnapping the cute 16-year-old stepdaughter of a diamond trader and demanding a huge ransom, they rest assured of success. Unforeseen complications arise when it turns out that the father isn't in a hurry to rescue his stepdaughter at all. Even more so, Candy's 'unfortunate' death would result in a huge financial triumph for him, so he sure ain't likely to come up with any type of ransom at all. The other – if possible even more brilliant – main storyline centers on a young and autistic boy who witnessed Candy's brutal live burial in a muddy grave with only a small tube for oxygen. He desperately attempts to warn his abusive parents about what he knows, but they're too caught up in their own crazy world of greed and self-pity. Purely talking in terms of grindhouse cinema-sickness, "The Candy Snatchers" leans damn close towards perfection! The atmosphere is constantly gritty, the violence & sleaze is very explicit and literally every character that walks through the screen is demented! Even the ones that only appear briefly, like the company manager who laughs hysterically at the poor boy's mental condition or the nasty gun store seller who deliberately ignores the reason why the gangster trio so urgently needs a shotgun. Sensitive viewers and/or people with a weak stomach beware, as poor young Candy goes through a hellish ordeal and the ending surely isn't cheerful. Even technically speaking, this production is far superior in comparison with the majority of 70's genre outings. Although obviously low-budgeted, the cinematography and editing are quite professional and the musical guidance is appropriately unsettling. The acting is top-notch, with an extra special word of praise for the director's young son Christopher in his first and only appearance on the big screen. "The Candy Snatchers" has recently been re-discovered and released in a fancy edition. The DVD is an absolute must have for every fan of the genre.

What a fuzz about Candy Snatchers. For a long time it wasn't available on laser, VHS or DVD so it had a big cult following. It's a good movie but to say that it is an exploitation, no, I wouldn't say so. It isn't sleazy enough to be called an exploitation. Doesn't contain enough blood and nudity to be called that. It's only at the last minutes that you will have your exploitation. But the acting is good and it's funny to see what is happening to the kidnappers once the ransom isn't being paid because daddy doesn't bother about his daughter, why, see it in the movie, I never give away plots. But for an old movie as this the quality of the film strip is excellent. For me there wasn't enough in this flick to put it on a shelve and be proud of it, I guess for a lot of people out there they are watching for the nudity of Playboy Playmate Tiffany Bolling, but at the end of the day, there is a lot better out there in the region of exploitation

I read about the notorious The Candy Snatchers in a horror magazine here in the UK. The film apparently has been banned here since it's release back in 1973. Even to this day it is banned here in the UK and has never been available on VHS Video, Lazar Disc or DVD. Curious to see The Candy Snatchers I visited Amazon.com where it appears the film is freely available to US customers. So I ordered it and it arrived a few days later.

The DVD came with a poster and 3 picture cards. The DVD has a number of extras contained on it. The extra's include a photo gallery, trailer and an interview with the woman who played Candy in the film. There's appears to be a lot effort gone into making the DVD. The film. The picture quality is great. Clear, colourful and no sign of dirt. Hard to believe it was made all those years ago, back in 1973.

The film opens with a catchy country and western sounding song with featuring the lyrics money is the route to all happiness. To sum the film up, it's about a gang of 3 whole abduct a girl in order to obtain some diamonds from her father. I cannot see why the film was ever banned in the UK or became notorious. The subject matter, kidnapping of a school girl is distasteful. The film is comical, is filled with comical incidental tunes. Theirs is a small fight scene with the gang of 3 and a telephone engineer, the fight is very comical. There is no tension in the film and it drifts from one boring scene to another. Not a film I would recommend.

The film is no where near as distasteful similar films, I spit on your Grave or Last House on the Left, to name two. The film is not grim, like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Comparing Candy Snatchers to other bad/poor banned horror films, I'd say the film is little better than Driller killer.

I'm baffled by the amount of people that thought this was a great movie. I get it that there is always a couple of people that couldn't recognize a pile of dung if you rubbed it in their faces but in this case you have to be absolutely blind to not see that The Candy Snatchers is one of the lousiest movies ever made. Almost, no not almost but EVERY scene is badly done, badly acted, badly shot, it just become laughable after a few minutes into the movie. In fact the movie is categorized in the Crime, Horror and Thriller genre, but the only genre it could be in is comedy, a bad comedy then. All the scenes are bad, beyond bad, you would struggle trying to make it worse on purpose. That's actually the only fun I had while enduring this piece of garbage, the fun it procured me to witness how bad it was. It looked like the worst Derrick episode you could imagine. The acting is incredibly bad, you couldn't do worse if you really tried to. I read reviews with seventies obscurity, seventies exploitation, Quentin Tarantino etc... Please stop tricking people into watching those horrible mistakes in cinema history.

S10 Rating: * * * * / * * * * * The Candy Snatchers is an interesting sort of film. On the surface is looks a bit like a standard movie-of-the-week thriller. It has 70's photography, 70's woka-woka music and so on. But the Candy Snatchers turns out to be a rather clever exploitation drama with a clever script. Three thugs hatch a foolproof scheme to get a briefcase full of diamonds by kidnapping a young schoolgirl and holding her for ransom. But the plan goes south when some unforeseen wrinkles appear. Even though the Candy Snatchers has a conventional feel to it the film is far from it. The director manages to make some good tension with the twists and turns of the thieves and Candy's plight. The acting is above average for this type of film. The thieves all have interesting personalities and most characters generate sympathy for them. The Candy Snatchers is a rare 70's treat that will satisfy exploitation fans and thriller fans alike.

This is what you would get if you asked Jim Thompson to write a Three Stooges episode and then told him at the last minute he had to include a small child channeling the spirit of Harpo Marx. See it if you get the chance by all means.

The details of "The Candy Snatchers" sound promising, especially for a nasty exploitation/drive-in type flick, but they just never really come together.

The movie is about a trio of psychopaths - two men and one woman - who kidnap a teenage girl because she is the daughter of a wealthy jewellery store owner. They want to ransom the girl for diamonds, but discover that the girl's father is in fact only her stepfather, and he doesn't care at all what happens to her.

This is actually a very interesting set-up for a noir-type story. The Coen brothers could do something good with it.

Failing that, exploitation filmmakers should be able to make something fairly memorable. Everybody in the movie is coldblooded and nasty, and not even the kidnapped girl appears as a sympathetic character. One of the crims looks set-up to be more sympathetic, bonding with the girl, but then he rapes his female partner-in-crime.

Central to the movie is a mute young boy. He's really the only interesting thing about it. What the movie does with the boy right at the end has to be seen to be believed. The ending was already a bloodbath, but the way they involve the kid (no spoilers) is ridiculous.

I have a theory that the real difference between exploitation and more mainstream films is that in exploitation movies typically you feel nothing for the characters and just watch them do sexy, or nasty, or bloody, things. You watched detached like a witness to an accident involving people you don't know. The days of sex/violent content being a sign that a movie is exploitation are long gone thanks to directors like Scorsese and Tarantino who invested their mainstream flicks with exploitation's unflinching violence.

Although it's not all that violent, doesn't have any sex I remember and only a brief scene of topless nudity, "The Candy Snatchers" fits this definition of exploitation film to a T. It's impossible to feel anything for the horrible characters. I just wish the movie had made me feel something other than boredom and bemusement.

Judged in its own genre (70's sleazy no-budget exploitation flicks) this movie is a classic. It's well acted, the plot is interesting, and the twists near the end are really creepy. This movie will send shivers down your spine not because of gore but because of the monstrous nature of some of its characters.

Three kidnappers from Los Angeles, two men and a woman (parked in a van wearing plastic glasses and noses!), stake out a Catholic school girl who apparently hitchhikes home every day from class. Inspired by a true incident in 1968 Florida, the young girl is buried alive with a breathing tube while her snatchers contact Candy's stepfather for a ransom of diamonds--but, of course, he's a weasel who'd rather have Candy's inheritance money more than he'd like to have her alive. Written in shorthand by Bryan Gindoff and director Guerdon Trueblood, this low-budget suspenser (shot for just $250K) has acquired a cult following but isn't very exciting. Robert Maxwell's cinematography is clean and crisp, but the hysteria in the scenario (not just from the kidnappers and the victim but also from the deranged parents of a mute child-witness) is ear-splitting. Top-billed Tiffany Bolling (as ruthless kidnapper Jessie) later denounced the picture, calling it "a horrendous experience." She's right. *1/2 from ****