Synopsis

An abused autistic boy is the sole witness to the kidnapping of a teenage heiress.

Official Review

Obviously hoping to cash in on the infamy of Wes Craven’s “The Last House on the Left”(1972), in 1973, director Guerdon Trueblood and writer Bryan Gindoff set out to make their own off-kilter version of a young woman in peril exploitation film. Even down to the poster art of the criminals looking down at their victim a la Krug and company and one of the taglines reading “’Violence Beyond ‘Last House on the Left’!” Well, I can say that’s not true but “The Candy Snatchers” IS in the same vein as “LHOTL” but the dynamics of the film are quite the opposite. The result is the sometimes bizarre, sometimes clever but definitely different, “The Candy Snatchers”. Starring Tiffany Bolling (a “Playboy” Playmate in 1972) as Jessie, the beauty AND brains of the kidnapping gang, her twisted brother Alan (Brad David) and an ex-Vietnam vet with issues, Eddy (Vince Martorano), the film opens with Candy Phillips (Susan Sennett, playing a convincing 16-year old even though she was actually 28) leaving her Catholic school, hitching a ride partway home and then getting snatched by the gang. Their plan is to bury Candy in a hole in the ground with only a pipe for air and demand that her father, who manages a jewelry store, deliver all of the diamonds to them in exchange for Candy. But from the point of Candy’s burial on, nothing goes right for anyone. The gang is spied upon by a very young boy, Sean Newton (the director’s son, Christopher Trueblood, billed here as “Christophe”), who tries to tell his abusive, white trash mother Audrey (Bonnie Boland) and his workaholic father, Dudley (Jerry Butts) what he saw but, ironically, the child is a mute. Actually, Candy and Sean are the only likable characters in the entire film – the viewer really cares about both of them and what eventually happens to them. …Read More