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"Strangers shouldn't talk to little girls." - "Hard Candy" tagline.

One of the challenges low budget filmmakers face is isolating a story down to as few locations as possible. This is a lot harder task that you can imagine, as is the other part of the equation - keeping the speaking parts down to its barest minimum.

In the 2005 movie "Hard Candy", first time feature film director David Slade does this as effectively as I've ever seen done. For the majority of the film it's just the two main actors in one location. Shot in only eighteen days, that this is one of the more chilling thrillers to reach the screen in recent years is a major accomplishment for this one time music video director.

This could be due in large part to the subject material of the movie; as "Hard Candy" is slang for an underage girl on the Internet.

Juno's Ellen Page plays Hayley, a wise beyond her years teenage girl who thinks that a 32 year old photographer she met on the Internet is responsible for the death (and other unmentionable crimes) of another young girl.

She chats up said photographer, Jeff (Patrick Wilson), and cons her way into his home to find proof to what she already believes is true.

In the opening scenes of the film, his obviously inappropriate interest in her is enough to make your skin crawl. You get the sense that he could be dangerous, and Ellen plays her part as innocent rabbit being lured into the trap to perfection.

Once they get to Jeff's house - the main location for the action of the film - the tables suddenly turn. No longer as Hayley a scared little rabbit. Instead this tiny, frail looking girl becomes Jeff's captor and tormentor.

Screenwriter Brian Nelson has effectively set his own trap for the audience. By introducing Jeff as lecherous and potentially dangerous to young girls, we remain somewhat sympathetic to Hayley even though she relentlessly and unapologetically tortures him.

Of course, I say that as a woman. The men in the room with me during some of the scenes were definitely more sympathetic to Jeff, especially during a particularly gruesome "surgery" scene. It was a scene so intense, Wilson passed out from exertion during the take.

It's definitely not a film for the fainthearted, as this cat and mouse game could spell curtains for either character at the hand of the other - with you as the audience unsure exactly whose cause to champion. Depending on your own perspective, you could end up rooting for both at alternating parts of the movie, as so many assumptions are tossed right out the window.

Is she 14? Is she an adult? Is he a murderer? Or just a guy with a preference for teenage models?

You'll be guessing right up to the final scene.

"Hard Candy" is a film that does its job extremely well, but given the graphic exploration of certainly taboo topics - it's also film that is ultimately limited in its reach. If you can stomach it, it's certainly quite effective.

You just might need a shower later to wash its residue away.

A far more frightening deterrent to pedophiles than "To Catch a Predator", "Hard Candy" is a masterfully woven tale that turns the hunter into the hunted.

A+

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