Our little noirish potboiler of seedy characters and double-crosses wastes little time to get up to speed. We open on three hoodlums in a VW microbus trailing a young girl on the sly. The girl, sixteen year old Candy (Susan Sennet), sticks her thumb out for a lift and the van stops, but their intentions are far from samaritan. Before she can react, the girl is yanked inside, blindfolded, bound and gagged, then driven to a remote spot and buried alive in a shallow grave.

Before the kidnappers leave, one of the hoodlums tells the girl through the air tube to relax, because if her old man comes through with the ransom, she'll be home for supper.

The three kidnappers, Jessie (Tiffany Bolling), her hot-headed brother, Alan (Brad David), and the husky Eddie (Vince Martorano), pile back into the van and leave to deliver the ransom note. (They're kind of like The Mod Squad -- if Link were a sweaty, doughy, middle-aged white guy.)

Avery (Ben Piazza), Candy's father, works for a a highbrow jewelry store. Eddie stakes the store out, Alan hides the ransom note, and Jessie, the obvious ringleader, makes the call. She tells Avery where to find the envelope, and  if he ever wants to see his daughter alive again, to follow their instructions, including, of course, no police interference.

Eddie watches as Avery finds the note. The ransom for Candy is every diamond in the store, to be delivered to a specific drop off spot. Avery is visibly shaken by the turn of events, recovers, then closes up the shop early and sends all his help home. Eddie returns to the van and happily reports that their kidnapping caper is going off like a Greek watch. (What does that even mean? Does that mean it's going well..?)

And then, pretty much after that, everything goes to hell.

- - - -

Guerdon Trueblood is mostly known for his writings for the small screen. He's the credited screenwriter for Sole Survivor, which most people purport to be the first movie ever made specifically for television. The supernatural tale of ghosts that haunt an old wreck of a World War II vintage bomber is pretty good. After that, Trueblood got killer insects on the brain, churning out scripts for The Savage Bees, The Return of the Savage Bees, Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo, and It Happened at Lakewood Matter -- where "it" happened to be the invasion of a colony of angry ants.

In between all of that, Trueblood made his directorial debut with The Candy Snatchers, an unrelentingly bleak morality play. With a tight script from Bryan Gindoff (who also penned Hard Times, my all time favorite Charles Bronson movie), Trueblood delivers a tale that betrays his background in network TV. And that's what the movie reminds me of, those old hard nose detective shows from the '70s like Baretta or The Rockford Files, or better yet, an episode of Starsky & Hutch gone horribly, horribly wrong.

So far that's exactly how the movie is playing out: a by the numbers police drama, but the film is about to take a startling left turn on us. Several of them, actually. And things do go wrong, all around, in very disturbing ways that I'll be getting in to as the review progresses. 

So fair warning -- there be spoilers ahead. Big ones.

From the hideous theme song "Money is the Root of all Happiness" -- that'll bore into your brain like a Ceti eel to be replayed again and again -- to the gonzo dialogue, to the brutal treatment of it's namesake character, I honestly can't recall a movie that was more wrong on so many levels than this thing. It's a vintage piece of '70s sleaze and unflinching violence to be sure that would never, ever, in a million years, get made today. Every character and scene basically grinds up in its own gears until there's nothing left standing. And just when you think it can't get any worse...It does.

The kidnappers' meticulous plan appears to be going off without a hitch, but there were two factors that they weren't prepared for.

The first is the unexpected presence of Sean Newton, an autistic child who also appears to be mute. Sean (played by Trueblood's own son Christopher) plays around the area where they buried Candy. In fact, he watched them do it; but he doesn't quite grasp what's going on, and inadvertently tortures the victim further by dropping peanuts down the air shaft (when he's not plugging it up with his hand!) The boy hears his harpy of a mother (Bonnie Bolland) calling for him, who gives Sean a whipping for running off before chucking him into the tub. (Wow.)

The second, and more dastardly turn of events happens when Avery, instead of heading for the ransom drop, goes home to find his lush of wife, Katherine (Dolores Dorn), already in her cups. He mixes her another stiff cocktail and says Candy is spending the night with some friends. Avery, the weasel, then takes the stolen diamonds to his mistress (Phyllis Major), gives them to her as a present(!), and they both hop in the sack for a little nookie(!!).

The kidnappers, fearing that Avery isn't taking them seriously when he doesn't show, dig Candy up. They warn the girl that the only thing keeping her alive is the blindfold and take her to their hideout. Once they get there, Alan wants to rape her, but Eddie starts to get protective. Jessie wants them to forget it and focus on the next step. (Because, say it with me, money is the root of all happiness.) To escalate the sense of urgency, they torture Candy, and force the girl to scream a message into a tape recorder. Alan wants to cut her ear off and send that with the taped demand, too. But when it comes right down to doing the deed, none of them have the stomach for it. 

Not to worry, Jessie has another solution. The results of which is a pretty embarrassing scene with a morgue attendant; who likes to negotiate his price for body parts with some nonsensical scatting -- that would have Cab Calloway spinning in his grave -- and fondling of the corpses while waxing poetically about the unfairness of life's lost opportunities to screw after your dead. *sigh* When the singing and fondling stops, Jessie has her needed ear.

Jessie and Alan want to bury Candy again, but Eddie won't let them. Eddie and Candy kind of have a bizarre heart to heart while the siblings are fetching the ear. It seems Eddie is a Vietnam vet whose been trampled over by life. He's got a thing for Jessie, but fears she's out of his league. But any sympathy Eddie has garnered for his actions to protect Candy are torpedoed in a later scene when he confronts Jessie with his feelings. When she rejects him, he attacks her and, well, I don't think I need to draw you a picture.

Despite the rapidly crumbling foundation of their partnership, the dream of a big payoff gets everyone on the same page again. While Eddie delivers the ear and tape to Avery, Jessie sends Alan back to the house to kill Candy. Why? I think to just piss Eddie off, but I can't be sure.

Meanwhile, Sean ventures into the villain's hideout and finds Candy tied up. He takes the gag and blindfold off, but he can't undo the knots binding her hands and feet. Candy pleads for him to go and get help, but by the time Sean figures out what she wants, Alan shows up. Sean manages to hide, but watches as Alan first strips and then forcibly rapes the helpless girl -- very graphically and very loudly -- and all of that is just as unpleasant as it sounds to watch. (Gah!)

We barely have time to recover from that, when we finally find out what that schmuck Avery is up to. Turns out he's Candy's step-dad, and he married Katherine for her money. But most of the money is locked up in a trust that Candy is due to inherit when she turns twenty-one. Avery is counting on the kidnappers to kill her, so he can get his hands on the girl's millions by default, ditch the wife, and then skip off to South America with his mistress.

This, of course, pisses Eddie off. He gets more pissed off when he finds out what Jessie and Alan are up to. They race back to the hideout where Eddie proceeds to knock Alan around. Too late to stop the rape, but in time to prevent Candy's death. 

Sean manages to escape during the confusion, but all attempts to convey to his mother that someone nearby needs help go for naught.

- - - -

There's another weird scene where Sean tries to use one of his talking dolls to call for help over the phone that is one of the ultimate WTF?! moments in all of cinema. Another soon follows when his mother starts giving the kid pills -- and I don't mean children's Tylenol.

Several other disheartening scenes involving Sean and his parents are probably worth mentioning, but I don't care to drag out the details. So I'll just let you decide if you want to see them or not.

- - - -

With nothing else to lose, the kidnappers decide to take one more run at Avery and the diamonds. First they hit a gun shop and arm up. They also decide that Candy is no longer of any use to them and is expendable. Eddie volunteers to the deed, but just buries her again -- with the promise that he'll dig her up and let her go once they finish with her no account step dad.

The trio go after Candy's mom first. Avery still won't play ball, but agrees to meet them at the jewelry store with the diamonds when they threaten to reveal his plan. Alan then secretly kills Katherine before they leave, saying she was number eleven. (Eleven what?)

The meeting with Avery goes bad, and things escalate out of control. Avery goes for a gun hidden in a drawer, but Alan kicks the door shut, smashing Avery's hand. Alan claims Avery is number twelve before shooting him in the guts; then turns the gun on Eddie, saying he's about to be number thirteen. Eddie grabs Jessie's carbine, which goes off, hitting Alan in the head, killing him instantly. Avery is still kicking, and grabs for his own gun, when Eddie takes the diamonds and Jessie and tries to flee. But Jessie won't leave her brother behind. She goes back and runs right into the wounded Avery, who shoots her dead.

Eddie escapes, with Avery in hot pursuit, and returns to the spot where Candy is buried. Upon arrival, he and Avery have a shoot-out. Eddie manages to kill Avery, and then starts to dig Candy up. He pulls up the air tube and uses it dig; but then another shot rings out, and Eddie takes one in the chest.

What the hell?

Is Avery still alive?

Nope.

Eddie looks around to see who shot him. The camera reveals Sean -- SEAN (!!!) -- pointing a gun at him. That's right, the kid is packing. (Where did the gun come from? I honestly don't know.) Eddie begs the boy to put it down, but Sean shoots him again, killing him deader than a Greek watch. Then we hear Sean's mother screaming for him to come home. Sean heads down the hill and out of sight. His mother keeps screaming until we hear another shot. The screaming stops. The camera pans back to reveal the hole where Candy's breathing tube was, and we can hear her crying underneath the layers of earth as the screen fades to black and the credits roll.

Well, isn't that a nice #@%*ing turd-burger of ending.

Keerist.

The End

I really wish I could translate into words the exact noise I made during the conclusion of The Candy Snatchers. An incredulous cry, choked off by an incoherent babbling, that degenerated into a full fledged roar  of anger when I realized the ramifications of what Sean had done, and that Candy was doomed to die in her shallow grave because of them. Evil is punished, but the film tells us bluntly that the price is way to high. (Heav-vey!)

The Candy Snatchers became infamous because of it's downer ending when it was first released, but it's been wallowing in obscurity ever since. People who'd actually seen it, championed it as a forgotten exploitative gem. And for nearly three decades, the inability to see the damned thing to confirm those claims only added to the film's notorious reputation. Now that it's out and readily available, via a spiffy DVD from Subversive Cinema, I honestly don't know if it will help or hurt the film's cult status. (See Massacre at Central High for more thoughts on this phenomenon.)

Lurid, pessimistic, brutal, and unpleasant to watch, but the best word to describe the film would probably be unpredictable. As a viewer, you're sucked in with absolutely no clue as to what twist or turn will come next. The characters are all scum-buckets but believable scum-buckets -- we're dealing with the bottom of the food chain here. The only two exceptions, Sean and Candy, don't belong in this world. They're there just to be kicked around and abused. All the actors play their characters well, but Sennet truly shines in her thankless role (she was actually 28 when this film was made), and what makes that ending almost work is Christopher Trueblood's startling performance.

By no stretch of the imagination is The Candy Snatchers a good film let alone great. It's a difficult film to sit through on many levels. After I watched it the first time, I hated it with every fiber of my being. But the more I thought about it, the more it started to work for me. So I watched it again. I didn't hate it, but it still pissed me off. Which, I guess, is a good thing, right?

They definitely don't make them like this anymore. And whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is up to the individual viewer.