Rating: B
Dir: John Swab
Star: Olivia Luccardi, Sam Quartin, Owen Campbell, William Baldwin
Sheesh, they’ll adapt anything into a movie these days. Hey, I guess if Clue, Battleship and Ouija can become films, why not Cand… Yeah, if the pic above wasn’t enough, I am joking. Do not, for the love of God, mistake this as about the quest for King Kandy. Though I am amused the Wikipedia page for the game specifically says, not to be confused with this film. For it’s actually about truck-stop hookers being stalked by a murderous psychopath. Which could, I admit, probably be adapted into a pretty decent board-game. The central character is Remy (Luccardi), an escapee from a religious cult, who finds herself stranded at the truck-stop, and befriended by Sadie (Quartin) and the other “lot lizards” there.
Remy eventually becomes part of the “team,” also including gay-for-pay Levi (Campbell), who service the truckers who pass through the high-altitude location – as well as local sheriff Rex (Baldwin). It’s a tough life, with violence a risk they face on an everyday basis, such as when a trucker shows up in a toilet stall with his throat slit, or someone decides Levi is a bit of rough. However, things escalate considerably, because the problem is: you can take the girl out of the cult, but you can’t take the cult out of the girl. After getting a visit from another member, Remy decides, as she puts it, “We must cleanse the world before we can cleanse ourselves of it.”
No prizes for guessing what that means, as if the poster doesn’t make it abundantly clear. Swab manages to do a decent job of straddling the exploitational and the thoughtful. This certainly doesn’t stint on the nudity, from the first scene which sees Sadie riding her client like she was trying to start a fire, through one of the girls taunting the cult leader by opening her legs in front. It’s pretty damn gory as well – again, see the pic above. But it’s not just mindless sex and violence, in contrast to something like the recently reviewed Hell Nurse. It would be easy for Swab to paint the victims as… well, just victims, but they’re depicted as there of their own choice and free will.
I did feel that the shift from religious advocate to prostitute to spree killer for Remy was a bit abrupt. A little more time for the transition might have helped, or perhaps making her more clearly dedicated to her lethal cause from the get-go. Yet the way things turn out, perhaps indicate that was the case all along. Credit to Swab for not pulling punches either, with things continuing to escalate and the body count continuing to mount until, literally, the final shot. Hardly anyone here gets out alive, and I was left wondering if the religious fundamentalists had won. There’s a lot of films while look to recreate the bygone grindhouse era. This seeks to look forward instead, and is likely all the better for it.