The Candy Snatchers (1973)

The Candy Snatchers (1973) Directed by Guerdon Trueblood

The corrosive misanthropy of this jaw-droppingly badly acted, darkly droll sociopathic manifesto about the moral collapse of consumerist Western societies unfolds in one of the most creative, formidable scripts ever to come out of American exploitation cinema, among the leanest ever written. Everyone is mentally fucked up in this circuitous affair about three nasty crooks who kidnap a virginal 16-year-old girl named Candy (Susan Sennett) in order to extort money from her father, who works in a jewelry store. The three desperadoes, Eddy (Vince Martorano) the most empathetic but slightly clumsy, Jessie (Tiffany Bolling) the irascible blonde cutie of the group, and Alan (Brad David) Jessie’s sleazy brother, bury Candy alive in a remote, sunny Southern California field, leave her there with a small hole for her to breathe through, and hope that their nefarious plan will succeed. But Guerdon Trueblood’s film has another Machiavellian scheme for them, and it all goes awry, and not in the way the universal clichés made you think. The narrative takes unknown, madcap intrepid detours to reach its satirical conclusion, where no one gets what they want; they all turn out to be rapacious characters corrupted by their unattainable materialistic aspirations, the film only places its deluded hopes in a blond wordless kid – the adorable contrast in the face of so much turpitude. It is the cycle of consumerism – money as the end itself and not as a means to an end – “Money is the root of all happiness” goes the ironic song that resonates to the rhythm of the sleaze surrounding the proceedings. The Candy Snatchers is the ostensible parable without any lesson, even pristine innocence is tainted by the end, we are all doomed!