Doce Matança

Decent, quiet, and slower paced, The Candy Witch is more about human failings than the supernatural (although it is there). Subtle approach keeps the trappings of a haunting ghost to a minimum, and that only makes the plot more the focus. Nothing new here, but a decent watch.

After hearing reports of a local haunting, a ghost hunter and his girlfriend decide to head over to investigate where they find evidence that a malicious spirit called The Candy Witch is haunting the family for a past indiscrimination against her and must protect them from the spirit.

For the most part, this one was a solid and enjoyable effort. Among the brightest aspects here is the general air of dread and suspense throughout which is highly enjoyable. There's some fantastic atmosphere created here through the witch's sudden appearances and stalking unaware victims which are often shot in the dark or under a sudden change of the situation, making the opening sequence of the woman trying to find a potential disturbance only to be confronted by the being, a fine series of encounters inside the house as they set up their investigations or the series of appearances around the village feature some chilling moments. That turns into plenty of fun once this one lets loose and decides to move away into more vicious encounters. Even though it's nonlethal, the bathtub encounter with the blood in the water and the figure standing over him gets quite creepy, and the series of attacks throughout the rest of the film are just as good. The theme of using candy as killing tools is quite original as it manages to produce some inventive kills and attacks which is a rather novel time. The last plus here is the fun investigation angle being employed here, where there's a fun mystery about the true nature of the haunting and what's going on in the family's experiences, making for some enjoyable elements in the film. There are some issues with this one. Among its biggest factors is the completely underwhelming and barely noticeable main player in the film who doesn't do anything special to showcase his supposed abilities. Much is made about the gift he's supposed to have, yet there's very little evidence of that throughout here, settling instead for having him sense something is off yet nothing more happens, it's dropped entirely to focus on the girlfriend who's much more proactive and he comes off bland as a result. As well, the films' obvious low-budget limitations shine through where the overall lack of gore in the kills, the weak effects and overall look of this one just screams low-budget indie. This might not be a true detriment to some but it's enough to lower this one somewhat.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language and a clothed sex scene.

Good for a gorefest, if that's what you're after. The witch is damn ugly, effects state-of-the-art, and tortured suffering realistically acted, but the paranormal investigations are really just a tangential trendy touch and plot revelations long expected before they finally happen.

Story wise this film was pretty good and some and I mean some of the acting passable but the film had so much wooden acting and boring parts in between the scary scenes that it was as if you are watching two movies.

The mum who was getting haunted was the best actor in the whole film, some if the supporting actors were passable but my problem was with the main actor: Jon Callaway boy was he bad, his acting was so wooden I thought there was a staircase in the film, yes that's how wooden he was. Also what the heck was that hair he had, I thought it had it's own role in the movie.

Also has this man had botox or what, that look he had with his forehead always with the same creases in it, it never moved.

Being the main actor his scenes either made me laugh at how bad he was or I was so bored that by the time the scare scenes came I wasn't bothered anymore.

All in all a total let down.

Good scare scenes but a boring movie with a pointless story in between the horror. Also for a better movie next time, GET A BETTER MAIN ACTOR NOT SOMEONE FROM IKEA.

Don't bother.

Another decent effort from the gang at Proportion Productions. Many crew/actors appear from film to film. Think American Horror Story but instead with UK Horror movies and you've got the idea. As it's difficult to do something new in horror, it's all about effort, writing, quality, and holding our interest these days. Horror in particular, is a very personal genre, we all definitely don't love or hate the same movies.

The Candy Witch is your typical vengeful spirit/haunted house flick. While not the best,, I found it to be a lot of fun, certainly better than a lot of movies of it's type. The cast and crew, while not very experienced, did a good job making a nice little horror. The practical gore effects were well done. It held my interest, which many horrors today fail to do. My only issue with the film is that a couple of times the witch herself looked pretty lame. Too much light and she looked kinda bogus. Otherwise, no real complaints. With a few more films under their belts, Proportion Productions might become a player, sort of like Blumhouse Productions, whom I've seen them compared to.

The cast featured Jon Callaway, Kate Lush, and my new UK Scream Queen Crush, Abi Casson Thompson. Abi has only done a handful of films so far, but she gets better every outing, as do the rest of the cast and crew. Hopefully future films by these folks will show continued improvement with each effort.

In the end, I'm giving The Candy Witch a 6/10 rating. They didn't reinvent the wheel, but they made a better than average vengeful spirit/haunted house movie, and nowadays, that's enough for me.