Never Invite a Teenager Home!!

Hard Candy

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When little, innocent Hayley Stark meets a guy on the computer and they decide to have a face-to-face meet, the chemistry is immaculate. They hit it off immediately. Jeff, a professional photographer, invited Hayley back to his house, where they start drinking screwdrivers. Before you know it, Jeff's camera is out, Hayley's top is off, and uh-oh, Jeff passes out. Might is be the incredible beauty of Hailey that brought him to his knees. Or was it maybe the tranquilers Hailey put in his drink? Judging from the little girl with teh red hood on and the huge fucking bear trap on the poster, you know this movie is going to take a turn for the worse. It turns out that Jeff is a professional photographer. He takes pictures of animals, models and naked children.

This movie has basically two cast members, Ellen Page (Hayley) and Patrick Wilson (Jeff) and it totally works. These two share the screen in a tense, taught thriller that was more tense than High Tension. But that's just my opinion. Both actors did an excellent job playign this movie out. There is a lot of dialogue between the two and there isn't a word wasted.

As Hayley tries to figure out what happened to Donna Mauer (it is never really explained whether or not Hayley knew this girl either) and as Jeff swears up and down he had nothing to do with her disappearance, but movie builds to a great conclusion and payoff that I was both surprised and pleased with. You watch this movie, and the lines are blurred between the two characters. While Jeff could potentially be a sexual predator, Hayley's role here isn't as innocent as her 14-year old mentality lets on.

This movie is creepy and thrilling and scary and exceptional. Its like one of those Dateline: Catch a Predator specials, only that the predator and the girl posing as an underage nymph are both guilty of something terrible. This movie is not for the squeamish, there are a couple scenes that are hard to watch (especially for the guys out there... watch it... you'll see), but Hard Candy is well worth seeking out and taking a look at.