THE DEVIL'S CANDY

"The Devil's Candy is a masterful slow burn … [and] a beautifully calibrated horror movie in which the themes are as potent as the suspense." – Screen Daily

Audiences worldwide have waited with bated breath to see how debut Australian filmmaker Sean Byrne would follow up his delightfully demented teen dating horror, The Loved Ones (MIFF Premiere Fund, 2009). Six years on, and he delivers the US-produced The Devil's Candy, securing his mantle as a horror genre director who knows how to toy with viewers.

The set-up will be familiar: a happy family moves into their dream home only to find it marred with a terrible secret. Although the headbanging painter (Ethan Embry) is under pressure to support his wife (Shiri Appleby) and pre-teen daughter (Kiara Glasco) on artist's wages, they are a tight-knit unit – that is, until the bounds of their relationship are tested with the mentally disturbed former resident (Pruitt Taylor Vince) turning up to reclaim his home.

Part possession thriller, part haunted house and serial killer story, The Devil's Candy evocatively offers heavy metal music and visual art as an expression of satanic insanity. Metal mavens will be thrilled.

"Equally as beautiful as they are terrifying, Byrne's images turn the usual psychotic killer routine into a gorgeous rumination on the thin line between passion and madness." – Indiewire

Emma Westwood will host a Q&A with Sean Byrne at the session on 10 August

Kier-la Janissie will introduce the session on 12 August with Sean Byrne