Where Dreams are Found and Lost: Sacrifice in ‘The Devil’s Candy’
By Pat Brennan
Some guys they just give up living
And start dying little by little, piece by piece
Some guys come home from work and wash up
And go racin’ in the street
The older I get, the more I find that lyric circling inside my head.
It’s from “Racing in the Street,” a song from my favorite Bruce Springsteen album, Darkness on the Edge of Town. One of the major themes found throughout that collection of tracks centers around the realities of a life spent pursuing your dreams, and much of its charm for me comes from the unromantic stance it takes on that subject during its nearly 43-minute runtime. Some people, as the verse points out, eventually give up entirely on their goals and let resentment swallow them whole. Others keep going and take whatever setbacks they face in stride while maintaining their sense of optimism for the future and belief in themselves.
For the folks in that latter category, finding a balance between what you want out of life and what life wants out of you is key. Bills need to be paid, physical and mental health must be maintained, and relationships, be they romantic, friendly, or familial, require nourishment. So, you come to terms with these compromises, attempting to maintain your grip on the ambitions you hold in your heart, while simultaneously meeting your responsibilities and jettisoning the frivolous things that steal away your time.
The Devil’s Candy (Australian writer/director Sean Byrne’s follow-up to his fantastic debut picture, The Loved Ones) is a lot of movies rolled into one. It’s a throwback to the occult-focused horror flicks of the 1980s that capitalized on the real-life religious fever gripping society during the Satanic Panic, it’s a family drama centered on the unique relationship between a father and his teenage daughter, and it’s a tribute to heavy metal and the music genre’s legions of headbanging fans. It succeeds in all of these forms, but the reason the film continues to stay with me is because of the way its main character, Jesse, embodies that Springsteen quote I used earlier. Through him, Byrne beautifully illustrates the balancing act that is the life of an artist.
For the uninitiated, The Devil’s Candy follows one family’s descent into a nightmare after crossing paths with a deranged and possibly possessed child murderer. It all begins when Jesse (Ethan Embry), his wife Astrid (Shiri Appleby), and their teenage daughter Zooey (Kiara Glasco) move into a beautiful rural home just outside of Austin, Texas. At first, it’s all roses: after living in a cramped apartment for years, the family falls in love with the property’s wide-open spaces, especially Jesse, a painter, who finally gets to have a proper studio to work in. Unfortunately, it turns out that their house was once the childhood home of the aforementioned serial killer (played by the highly underrated Pruitt Taylor Vince). He spies on Zooey after attempting to return to his old stomping grounds and quickly becomes infatuated. With the girl now the object of Ray’s homicidal obsession and her father showing possible signs of demonic influence, a hellish showdown that could consume all parties involved soon erupts.
Jesse is someone many writers will feel a kinship with almost immediately. Our first glimpse of the character is of him painting in the garage of the apartment he and his family are renting. The piece before him stands in stark contrast to the man who’s creating it — Jesse is a lanky tattooed metal head with intense eyes and an intimidating aura. His painting, meanwhile, is of a couple of butterflies fluttering around a field. His daughter Zooey appears behind him and, peaking over his shoulder, deems his work to be “so not metal.” Jesse agrees, but it’s a commission he’s accepted from a local bank and besides, “most people don’t like metal.”
The state of his creative life is communicated so clearly in this brief scene. He’s technically doing what he loves, sure, but what he’s creating is sucking the soul from his body (“I’m painting fucking butterflies for a bank even though it makes me want to puke,” he exclaims later on in the film, confirming this assumption). However, these commissions also help to keep food on his table and even allow him and his family to move into what they believe will be their dream home. The gigs leach away valuable creative energy, something Jesse could put towards more inspiring projects, but he also understands the necessity of surrendering a portion of that precious commodity for those who depend on him.
Time is another valuable resource that Jesse must manage shrewdly, lest he suffers the consequences. We see this later on in the film when, after inadvertently connecting with whatever devilish muse resides on his newly bought property, Jesse begins to lose himself in his work to the point where his family suffers because of it. The best example of this is when he forgets to pick his daughter up from school. “It’s only my second day and you left me here,” a decidedly pissed-off Zooey says to her father when he finally arrives. He apologizes profusely (it’s clear from Jesse’s shock over his own inattentiveness that this is a ball he doesn’t normally drop) and is eventually forgiven. However, it’s clear that his transgression has not only hurt his daughter but has also added new tension to their already strained relationship, and that gulf will continue to grow as Jesse continues to lose himself in his work.
There’s a delicate equilibrium you have to strike between your art and everything else in your life. You only have so many hours in a day, and when you spend too many of them at the foot of whatever projects you’re working on, you run the risk of fraying the connections you have with the people who love you. Jesse isn’t doing this on purpose — obviously, there are supernatural influences afoot — but that loss of time is often not intentional to begin with. It’s something that creeps up on you if you’re not cognizant of it, so a certain kind of vigilance needs to be adopted.
As The Devil’s Candy barrels towards its climax, a line is spoken that sums up much of Jesse’s experience both as an artist and as a husband/father. After his new supernaturally influenced paintings are accepted by a fine art gallery in the city, he’s invited to have some celebratory drinks with its owner, Leonard (Tony Amendola). Jesse has a quick nip out of courtesy but declines the man’s offer for more because he has to pick up his daughter at school. Leonard insists but Jesse stands firm. Clearly not a fan of being said no to, the gallerist says with a not-so-thinly-veiled air of menace: “Nothing of true worth comes without some sacrifice.”
Leonard is absolutely right, but perhaps not in the way he intends. In his eyes, “the work” is more important than anything else and he cannot comprehend why the artist would turn away from it to attend to his family. However, Jesse understands the value that’s inherent in both sides of his life and sacrifices a small portion of each in order to keep those halves of himself alive. Yes, he might be a more successful artist if he didn’t have the responsibilities of family drawing away his attention and time, but an existence without the people he loves would almost certainly be a hollow one. And it’s true that his continuing to hold onto the dream of being a successful painter definitely leads to rocky moments in Jesse’s relationships, but to attempt to let go of that part of himself would be another form of death entirely.
A second theme that’s prevalent in Darkness on the Edge of Town is the sins of the father being visited upon their children. “Daddy worked his whole life for nothing but the pain, now he walks these empty rooms looking for something to blame,” Springsteen sings in “Adam Raised a Cain.” It’s a song that warns of the way trauma can echo through the generations of a family when a parent resents their own offspring for the loss of their dreams. These are the people in the first half of the lyrics I used earlier; they give up and let a part of themselves die but take no responsibility for their decision to do so, instead shifting the blame onto whatever or whoever is closest to them.
Choosing to pursue your ambitions despite all of adulthood’s challenges can be a hell of a difficult way to live. Sometimes it can feel like letting go would make things easier, and it probably would simplify things at the very least. But wrestling with the regrets you’d meet on that path and dealing with the disastrous ways they might change you as a person, could be far harder. In the end, it all comes down to deciding what cost you’re willing to pay. 🩸
About
Pat Brennan is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Fangoria, Bloody Disgusting, Dread Central, and Rue Morgue. He lives in New Brunswick with his wife, son, and very needy cat. Follow him on Twitter @PBrennan87.
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