Hard Candy is a 2005 American psychological thriller film[3] focusing on a 14-year-old female vigilante's trapping and torture of a man whom she suspects of being a sexual predator.
The film was directed by David Slade, written by Brian Nelson, and stars Patrick Wilson and Elliot Page.
14-year-old Hayley Stark and 32-year-old photographer Jeff Kohlver engage in a sexually charged, flirtatious online chat.
Hayley explains she has been tracking and baiting him through online chats and drugged him because she believes he is a sexual predator and murderer.
In the safe, Hayley finds pictures, including a photo of Donna Mauer, a local girl who has been kidnapped and remains missing.
When Jeff wakes, he finds himself bound to a steel table with a bag of ice on his genitals, making them numb.
Jeff attempts to dissuade her, including by telling her he was abused as a child in a play for sympathy, but fails.
Hayley consults a medical book to guide her through the procedure, describing it to Jeff as she performs the operation.
Jeff regains consciousness to find that Hayley has bound his wrists and hoisted him to stand on a chair in his kitchen with a noose around his neck.
Hayley makes Jeff an offer: if he kills himself, she promises to erase the evidence of his crimes, but if he refuses, she will expose his secrets.
This technique, known as ETTR, is a standard procedure in digital photography and cinematography to minimize the amount of noise in shadows and midtones.
[5] Elliot Page, in his memoir Pageboy, revealed that a member of the production gave him a ride home after the wrap party, and then sexually assaulted him.
[7] Hard Candy opened in two theaters in Los Angeles and New York City on April 14, 2006[1] in a limited release.
The critics consensus reads: "Disturbing, controversial, but entirely engrossing, Hard Candy is well written with strong lead performances, especially that of newcomer Elliot Page.
"[11] Steve Persall wrote in the Tampa Bay Times that he saw the movie in a crowded bar, yet "until the shocking end, there's nothing less than rapt attention to this sordid thriller about an online predator (Wilson) and his not-so-innocent prey [Elliot Page].
It's a memorably tense pas de deux, and if the movie doesn't pay off on it properly, fault a script that ventures further and further into psychological thriller claptrap, leaving the two stars to rely on their hefty talents to keep it at all believable.
David Edwards at the Daily Mirror praised it as a "smart, challenging and timely look at the world of internet grooming".
[15] Claudia Puig from USA Today praised Page for "remain[ing] consistently convincing" to his role which is both "powerful and chilling ... [he] manages to be both cruelly callous and likable, and [his] is one of the most complex, disturbing and haunting performances of the year.
[19] Page (who was presenting as female at the time) won the Best Actress award from the Austin Film Critics Association.
[24] The American DVD was released on September 19, 2006, with two commentary tracks, a 52-minute making-of featurette, six deleted and extended scenes, the script and director's notebook, and trailers for Hard Candy and other Lionsgate films.