Directed by Guerdon Trueblood
Written by Bryan Gindoff
Starring:
- Tiffany Bolling as Jessie
- Ben Piazza as Avery Philips
- Susan Sennett as Candy Philips
- Brad David as Alan
- Vince Martorano as Eddy
- Bonnie Boland as Audrey Newton
- Jerry Butts as Dudley Newton
Rating: 
The sheer, corrosive misanthropy of this jaw-droppingly wooden-acted, darkly hilarious, sociopathic gut-punch plays out like a ransom note scribbled in blood and bile—a jagged little masterstroke of American exploitation, and one of the tightest scripts to ever spill across the genre. Everybody’s a mess here—mentally fried, morally bankrupt—in this cruel, sunburnt tale of three bottom-feeding crooks who snatch a virginal 16-year-old named Candy (Susan Sennett) to squeeze her dad, a jewelry store worker, for cash. The trio? Eddy (Vince Martorano), the awkward one with a conscience. Jessie (Tiffany Bolling), the volatile blonde vixen. And Alan (Brad Davids), her revolting, sad-eyed brother. They bury poor Candy alive in a SoCal field, leave her a breathing straw, and pray their dumbass plan doesn’t implode. But director Guerdon Trueblood’s got something even uglier up his sleeve, and it all spirals into madness—not the kind you see coming, but the kind that spits in the face of genre expectations. The plot twists and grinds through deranged detours toward a finale that is more punchline than payoff. No one wins. Everyone loses. Greed infects every corner. The only glimmer of grace? A silent blond kid, angelic and blank—watching, witnessing, maybe inheriting this whole rotten circus. It’s the consumerist ouroboros: money as the drug and the disease. “Money is the root of all happiness,” chirps the closing song, oozing irony as filth coats the screen. The Candy Snatchers is a parable with zero morals—where even innocence doesn’t make it out clean. We’re all damned. Hooray!
