From the Sundance Film Festival, watch for the new movie "Hard Candy". Here's a short take from The NY Times:

Meanwhile, Lions Gate bought Mr. Slade's "Hard Candy," a taut thriller about a young girl who tortures a suspected child molester, for $2 million. It features a castration scene that had people buzzing.

Enjoy !

Finder

it does not show up in their search yet but i will keep looking.

I want to see this movie.. NOW.

"A spectacular performance by teenage thesp Ellen Page elevates this disturbing slice of designer shocksploitation into a film that's impossible to dismiss on principle. Destined to be called "the castration picture" due to the procedure the female lead spends two-thirds of the film preparing to perform on her male captive, this low-budget but exceedingly accomplished first feature by Brit commercials and video director David Slade stirs deeply conflicted feelings about its characters and the film itself. Lions Gate paid $4 million at Sundance for world rights, minus a few territories, and the investment looms as a very good one, as the tense, sleek picture could clean up in Europe and Asia, with the U.S. posing a somewhat chancier but still promising bet.

Roughly inspired by a Japanese case in which schoolgirls lured older men over the Internet, only to beat them up, and influenced by femme revenge pics going back to Abel Ferrara's "Ms. 45," Brian Nelson's clever screenplay pivots on the notion of female payback for all the underage girls molested or killed by adult males.

What Nelson, with the skill of a highly practiced playwright, and Slade manage most adroitly is to force the viewer to shift allegiances many times.

After a frisky Internet dalliance, 32-year-old fashion photographer Jeff Kohlver (Patrick Wilson) meets 14-year-old Hayley Stark (Page) at a Los Angeles cafe. Perhaps it should tell Jeff something that her reading matter consists of a Jean Seberg biography and "Romeo and Juliet" (she even sports a very cute Seberg haircut), but he chooses to overlook the warning signs and take her up to his beautifully minimalist Hollywood Hills home, a location in which, as photographed in bold widescreen compositions by Jo Willems, Michelangelo Antonioni would feel right at home.

Although Jeff says upfront he's "very aware of the legal boundaries," he doesn't prevent his guest from guzzling alcohol. Through all the early banter, Hayley comes off as far beyond her years, like a teasing 19-year-old in a coltish high school freshman's body.

Suddenly, Jeff passes out. When he awakens, he finds himself bound to a chair and accused by Hayley of being a pedophile, a molester and perhaps even the murderer of a young girl. As Jeff protests his innocence, Hayley scours his emails for incriminating evidence, searches his home for porn and taunts him about his alleged involvements with underage fashion models.

After a brutal struggle, Hayley prevails again, with Jeff this time, at 45 minutes in, tied down on a table, a bag of ice over his crotch and ready to live a scene out of "Reservoir Dogs," only this time the bit of anatomy is more delicate and precious than an ear. It's time for "a little preventive maintenance," announces Hayley as this daughter of a med student begins shaving (offscreen) the area in question.

As one braces for the seemingly inevitable, it's easy to disengage from the proceedings by dismissing them as low-end cinematic exploitation and sadism, and there is undeniably an element of that; interior voices ranging from whispers to shouts will insist this is just manipulative rubbish.

But with more than a half-hour still to go, it becomes clear how effectively the film has been playing with viewer sympathies. Increasingly, Hayley comes off as a possibly demented and delusional bitch, a very intelligent and articulate one, to be sure, and quite an expert with ropes and knots. And one is inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to Jeff, whose protests seem plausible and degree of victimization extreme.

But things flip and flop more than once thereafter, and by pic's end it's difficult not to ponder the serious questions of physical abuse Hayley has raised, even if they seemed like specious rationalizations for outrageous cinematic torture during a good deal of the running time.

Although the film's design elements, from the elegant decor and arresting lateral scene transitions bathed in red to the infectious musical selections, are striking if trendy, "Hard Candy" is memorable most of all for Page, a Halifax, Nova Scotia thesp said to have been 15 when pic was shot. Self-possessed to an astonishing degree, both as an actress and as the character, Page handles her enormous load of dialogue with adult-sized portions of emotion, insinuation and driving rage, not to mention an appreciation of sexual dynamics and consequences that repeatedly astonishes. The actress will be in great demand as soon as Hollywood sees this, if she isn't already.

Wilson, currently onscreen as the courtly benefactor in "The Phantom of the Opera," spends most of the picture unbecomingly sweaty and hog-tied, but is entirely convincing as the smooth-talking photog.

Aesthetically and in terms of subject matter and the frank presentation of an acutely sexualized young teenage girl, "Hard Candy" feels much more like a European film than an American one, despite the Yank characters and Hollywood location. Whether it's Eurotrash or Eurosmart will be a matter of opinion."

Oh Boy,

I bet that the censors have a field day with this one. Better hope that the UNRATED version is released.

Maybe somebody stole the plot from the E.A.

Does anyone recall any stories like this? Well, most are like this on the E.A.

Once again, the mainstream catches up with us...

A-1

so does she cut off his balls (no good if she does) or dick (now thats good) hahaha

Here is a movie that essentially centers around castration. It's claim to fame is that it is a castration movie. I wonder if there is any cock and ball toture?

I wonder if it is a prolonged castration. She slices into on bag, removes a nut... etc. Or does she do a little cutting here or there, teasing him. Or is it a swift cut? Sounds like shes going to do an impromptu vasectomy and goes down hill from there.

GOD I WANT TO SEE THIS MOVIE NOW!

Here my friends, is a movie we've waiting for!

Thanks for the detail !

But remember, this is not a XXX porn movie! So don't expect to see anything very explicit ... on the other hand, there is absolutely no pussy-footin' around about what this movie actually about. That much said, I expect a lot of "buzz" about this movie when it hits theaters around the country ... you may have to search a little, it probably won't hit your local megaplex with 15 dinky overpriced theaters. So OK, buy the DVD "unrated" version.

I remember "Extremities" with Farrah Fawcett got similar discussion going - she overcomes and ties up attempted rapist - there's a suggestion she might slice off a souvenir or two ... but she doesn't, of course. Anyone else see it? How suggestive is the dialog, and what was she aiming to remove?

Thanks,

Finder

I was looking up the Hard Candy castration scene on google and found this from Ain't It Cool News:

"-MAJOR, MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW-

Suffice to say, things are not what they seem. The opening taps into the fears of paedophiles seducing girls over the internet without being too overt or falling into cliché- Jeff is charming without being slimy, and it’s at least conceivable that it could all have a rational (if verging on unhealthy) relationship. But it is set up to make you feel that Hayley is getting in way over her head, expressing and experimenting with her sexuality in the wrong way, and there’s going to be trouble because of it.

Well, there is trouble, but not the way you expect, as Hayley is a long way from the innocent she appears. When Jeff awakens, he’s tied to a chair, and as Hayley puts it- “Playtime is over. Time to wake up.” She’s not in a good mood. She’s happy to hurt him if he doesn’t co-operate. And she’s actually been stalking him- she’s convinced he’s a genuine paedophile, and is absolutely determined that she’s going to prove it. She hunts through his house, looking for his stash of porn. She goads him. She insults him.

And then, she mentions this operation that she wants to try

If there’s one thing this film will become infamous for, it’s the Castration scene. Or, as it should be described, the “Castration” scene. It’s a lengthy sequence where Jeff is lashed to a table with his trousers off, and Hayley toys with him, tortures him, teases him with the idea that she’s not going to do anything- and then she does. The build up is fantastic, and the performances from both of them are great- but there’s two problems. Firstly, it’s a very big stretch of the imagination for a 14 year old to go this far, and the film never completely comes up with an explanation for this. And secondly, the film never totally convinces that it’s going to go that far- so it’s not actually that much of a surprise when we discover that it’s been faked with lots of ice, and strategic use of a Bulldog Clip."

Read full article HERE (http://www2.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=22480)

So, apparently, she just threatens his testicles, and she doesn't really do it in the end...