Candy Stripers (2006, Kate Robbins)

Okay, so what do we have here? Taking Doctor Gogol's lead about judging books (and DVDs) by their covers, let's take a quick butchers at what the marketing department have thrown our way.




A quick glance at the cover would tend to imply that we're in for the following over the next 90 mins.

1) Some Candy Stripers (who we don't have an equivalent to in the UK, but as far as I understand it are non-nursing personnel who help out looking after kids and old folks in hospitals. If I'm totally wrong, I apologise to Candy Stripers everywhere)
2) Some kind of alien possession/body snatching shenanigans
3) Some vague titillation
4) An awful lot of lollipop sucking

And, yup, this delivers on all 4 counts. Particularly, funnily enough, on the lollipop sucking. Because the aliens that possess these candy stripers (Yay! Both of my assumptions were correct! I am the Sherlock Holmes of the B-Movie world!) need to intake an awful lot of sugar to survive, in a plot point which also handily provides an excuse for lots of long close-ups of hot candy stripers sucking things suggestively.

I can see you already tapping your feet impatiently. You want to know the plot, don't you? OK, but let's do it really quick. Like pulling off a plaster, it'll hurt less.

A pre-credits car accident sequence introduces us to an alien which spreads by popping out of people's mouths and sort of stinging them. It'll prompt a feeling of deja-vu in anyone who's ever seen The Hidden or Jason Goes to Hell. Once stung, the stingees turn into aliens who do the same thing. Rinse and repeat. Oh, and they get a bit sexier than usual. The main body of the flick takes place in a hospital. I think that's about as much as you need to know plotwise.. If you attempt to grill me for things like character names I'll hold my hands up and admit that I've forgotten 'em all already.

There's a bit of nudity here and there, some fairly good practical effects and some fairly poor CGI ones. It goes about its business perfectly effectively and would be best enjoyed with a crate of Sam Adams and some fairly low expectations. There's some nice use of PVA glue and joke shop aerosol cobwebs. I would imagine that it'd sit nicely as part of a horror all-nighter, and I personally had fun with it.

Right, I'm heading off to Google 'candy stripers' in order to find out what they actually do for a living. If I don't come back within a week or so, send out a search party.

***/5