[Pruitt Taylor Vince] knocks it out of the park in this movie. Just about every time he walked on frame he just gave me chills. He's such an unsettling presence in this film.

| Original Score: A- | Feb 2, 2018

The Devil's Candy isn't particularly bloody in and of itself. It suggests acts of terrible evil far more than it shows, and is all the more intense for it. Highly recommended.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Apr 20, 2017

Sean Byrne's assured second feature is so in on the satanic joke, it sometimes feels like a comedy. In its final turn, it brings the pain; it's definitely a horror movie but a wonderfully witty one, not for gentle souls.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 3, 2017

A terrifying heavy metal treat worth savoring.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 17, 2017

With The Devil's Candy, Byrne confirms his status as a filmmaker to watch.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 17, 2017

What makes "The Devil's Candy" a standout is how well-developed these characters are. This is ultimately a movie about parenting, and how even "hip" moms and dads fear the choices they make are hurting their young.

| Mar 16, 2017

The film moves so quickly that lingering tonal unease from scene to scene never really has time to stick, and little plot questions only start nagging after the last screaming lick over the end credits fades.

| Original Score: B | Mar 16, 2017

Mr. Byrne - relying almost entirely on a doom-metal soundtrack, game performers and a grungy palette of oily browns and moldy greens - somehow whips his ingredients into an improbably taut man-versus-Satan showdown.

| Mar 15, 2017

This is a horror film made in the true spirit of metal: just like the music it's inspired by, it's loud and sometimes gruesome but also winningly earnest.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 13, 2016

The Devil's Candy offers a lean and slick homage to occult films, but with a knowing edge that suggests director Sean Byrne is aiming for the critical rafters.

| Mar 7, 2016

The Devil's Candy is the complete midnight movie package. It's got characters to root for, a clever narrative, and a spot-on mix of scares-those that are brimming with energy and others that'll seep in and mess with your head.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Mar 4, 2016

Byrne's artful use of image and sound takes the narrative to a whole new level. Heavy metal music dominates the soundtrack, as well as the characters' lives, providing an ideal conduit for the demonic forces lurking beneath the story's surface.

| Mar 4, 2016

This is thrasher as rounded character, not stoner buffoon, and that alone makes The Devil's Candy stand out from the crowd.

| Mar 4, 2016

presents itself as an archetypal clash of good & evil, & wraps itself in Christian iconography & ideology, [but] its conflict takes place as much within as between Jesse & Ray, so that its drama of errant masculinity comes with a psychological edge.

| Feb 29, 2016

It is a lean, mean, tight (under 80 minutes) thriller that draws from other films like it without feeling derivative.

| Sep 19, 2015

Accomplished visually and busy sonically, it nonetheless falls short with a story of rock 'n' roll demonic possession that scarcely begins to exploit the ideas embedded in its serviceable premise.

| Sep 17, 2015

A beautifully calibrated horror movie in which the themes are as potent as the suspense, The Devil's Candy establishes its characters first, which makes their eventual and inevitable descent into terror all the more gripping.

Full Review | Sep 16, 2015