The key to this operation is daring and surprise.
It isn't difficult to deduce from the title of 1973's The Candy Snatchers that it's about a kidnapping (specifically, of a girl named Candy). And since it's a movie about a kidnapping, it's pretty much a given that it won't go according to the kidnappers' plans. (Has there ever been a movie kidnapping that did?) What's not so easy to anticipate is that it's going to be so relentlessly unpleasant, although the release year -- right in the exploitation sweet spot -- is a strong indicator that it won't be a walk in the park for anybody, least of all the victim.
Speaking of the victim, Candy (Susan Sennett) suffers mightily at the hands of her captors, who blindfold, gag, and tie her up, then bury her in a shallow grave at an abandoned construction site while they make their demands of her father (Ben Piazza), the manager of a jewelry store. "If your old man's generous, you'll be home for dinner," one of them tells her, little realizing that he has no intention of turning over a fortune in diamonds to them and, in fact, plans to run off with his mistress at his earliest convenience. This is news to ringleader Jessie (Tiffany Bolling), her psychotic younger brother Alan (Brad David), and their accomplice Eddy (Vince Martorano), who takes on the role of Candy's protector when the others begin contemplating how they can convince her father that they mean business.
Meanwhile, director Guerdon Trueblood and writer/producer Bryan Gindoff introduce a subplot about an autistic boy (played by the director's son Christopher) who discovers Candy's hiding place and tries to get help, but his inability to speak coupled with the fact that his parents are insufferable assholes prevents him from doing so. Then again, just about every adult in the film is reprehensible in one way or another. Even the comparatively sympathetic Eddy crosses a line when he sexually assaults Jessica, giving the audience license to despise him just as much as everybody else. How considerate.