The rating will tell you what you probably need to know. Hard Candy merits an R for "disturbing violent and aberrant sexual content involving a teen." As an afterthought, the board throws in "…and for language." Really, though, this film is too uncomfortable for the language to be noticed much.

Writer Brian Nelson and Director David Slade have crafted a terrifically suspenseful film. Riffing slightly off of Little Red Riding Hood in a far more disturbing way than Freeway or even Hoodwinked, the film taps into a deep-seated fear that seems to be in the news every other week.

It opens with an online chat between a 14 year old girl and a clearly older man. Jeff (Patrick Wilson) seems way too enthusiastic for comfort. When he meets Hayley (Ellen Page) face-to-face in a coffee shop, it's hard to believe that the counter clerk (Gilbert John) wouldn't immediately call the police. Such a move would certainly have garnered him more screen time, but Hard Candy is definitely a play between two people with no need for ancillary characters..

In fact, the script would work on stage. So minor are the other characters, they could exist offscreen with no real effect on the rhythm of the film. Between his two main characters, Nelson leaves very little room for quiet moments, as musings and ruminations bounce off the walls. It's a taut battle of wits, and even though Hayley would seem the weaker at only fourteen, she's "…an honor student. There's nothing (she) can't do."

When you fight monsters, you risk becoming one yourself. And though we know from the beginning that photographer Jeff has more than a touch of evil to him (of course, terribly banal), it's soon clear that Hayley has gone over the edge herself. As she keeps reminding her opponent, she's extremely smart, but that intelligence has not been tempered with wisdom.

Page plays the role, however, with a wisdom rare in an actress so young (at the time of the filming, she was fifteen). At times Hayley seems seductive, but we get fleeting hints of this all being beyond her control. Yet that may all be for Jeff's benefit, part of the lure for the potential pedophile. She often speaks without much breath support, a girl so caught up in the excitement of her scheme and with so much to say that she keeps forgetting to simply breathe.

Nor does Slade give us much chance to breathe ourselves. The uneasiness of the set-up turns to shock at a plot twist, then into genuine terror. One leg-crossing sequence lasts for at least five minutes, and not even a well-delivered monologue from Jeff can distract us from what we don't want to see but can't look away from. Yet despite the violence and the often excruciating suspense, the Director rarely gives us any stereotypical "money shots." Instead, he trusts his audience's imagination.

Slade does, however, give us much to look at. Hard Candy has a before-the-title credit for Digital Colorist, and the hues in this film play a large role in lifting this out of hack territory. It's both theatrical and immediate, with washes of red (wall? Curtain? Our own eyelids as we try to scrub what we think we're going to see out of our heads?) to mark scene changes.

Yet none of the tricks distract from the overall intensity. Only once does a transition feel odd, and that's only because it seems like a break between Act One and Act Two, fooling us for an instant in thinking we might get some relief.

Hard Candy is not an easy film to sit through. Yet it's extremely satisfying for horror fans, and sure to engender debate afterward. Though guys, you might find it hard to talk for a while. Heck, you might even just want to sit there with your legs crossed until the ushers come to clean up the theater.

Rating:

Derek McCaw