if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

This is about a guy in high school who gets asked to the prom by a girl but he turns her down because he's already seeing someone else. Turns out he turned the wrong girl down.I don't mind gore and I don't mind psycho killer films, though they aren't my favorite horror flavor. I just don't like films that are so, so, slow and drawwwwwn out. I ended up fast forwarding this around the 50-minute mark just to get to the interesting bits and then on to the ending. I couldn't put up with it anymore. There are good bits and funny bits and the acting is okay for the most part, but I found the in-between bits so irritatingly boring and a drawn out snoozefest of artistic and pretentious film-making. In short - it did my head in!I've given this a generous 4/10. I wanted to give it 2/10 but I thought I would have been rating it with my emotions rather than with an objective mind. I honestly think the 6.7 rating for this is far too high, but then, that's only my opinion. A lot of people really seem to like this film.

So well acted, directed, and composed. This film has a campy feel and an experts touch. Haunts you emotionally, thrills you with sadistic gore and torture, and sticks with you when it's over. Sean Byrne was well prepared for this to be his first full length picture. Was very surprised I missed this one 8 years ago. Not going to give away a single scene here, just my opinion. This movie, in a nutshell, is about dealing with trauma and loss. There are scenes that take me back to campy teen flicks from my teens and of the past ten years, but the meat of the story is the kidnapping, torture, shocking and hard to watch material, and the insanely brilliant performance by Robin McLeavy. Definitely worth an hour and 24 minutes of your time when you want to get into a good horror movie.

I recently watched writer/director Sean Byrne's latest film 'The Devil's Candy' and enjoyed it so much I thought I better check out his previous film 'The Loved Ones'. I had no idea going in that it was an Australian film. Australian's have done some very fine horror films in their time, 'Wolf Creek' and its sequel being a couple of my favourites. I did enjoy 'The Loved Ones' but it would be fair to say Byrne had not mastered his art quite yet, nor would you expect him to have in his debut film.The movie is very dark and twisted which I liked very much. Sometimes films like this try not to take them self too seriously, and so they try and add an almost humorous layer into the mix, and it always just comes across terribly. There is none of that here from Byrne. Even though there are certain scenes that are certainly out there (and could even be considered funny in a way) they are never intended that way and the film remains very serious in tone.The acting is a little dubious in places, which hurts the film a substantial amount. The reason for this is because there are some truly great characters here just begging to be given the limelight. I read that John Jarratt (from 'Wolf Creek') turned down a role for fear of being typecast. It's a real shame he had to do that though, because he would have been ideal in this type of role and could have been the icing on the cake for the movie. There is enough originality here to make this a worthy watch though. It's certainly not perfect, but if you go in simply looking for a fun time, you're probably going to have one.

I've seen a lot of horror films and I swear, none so far was disgusting until I decided to watch this movie! It was very dark and hideous, it actually reminded me a bit of Carrie like how the girl Lola was denied from Brent on saying no to being his date for prom. It was very creepy, disturbing and destroying to know that her father got involved in her horrific actions. He must've sexually abused her as a child, no wonder she is messed up but if that was the case, then she should know how deeply wrong that trying to kill someone is cruel. I would love to know this girls back story in the film! Especially her poor mother, god what has they done to her?! I was very surprised to see there was no police in this but only a police car which made no sense to me! At least Brent survived and went back to Holly. Of course, Lola being killed for being a monster...