Hard Candy/YMMV
- Acceptable Targets - Some have theorized that Hayley is just a sociopathic sadist who looks for socially acceptable targets, like pedophiles.
- Word of God has confirmed this.
- Some believe that the writers view pedophiles and hebephiles as Acceptable Targets and were playing this trope straight.
- Alternate Character Interpretation - Both characters are subject to this, more so Hayley.
- A lot of people seem to think Hayley was molested or otherwise abused, driving her to seek revenge on men like the one who hurt her, which does change things up a bit.
- Complete Monster: Both characters. Jeff's monster-ness is more in the backstory, but Hayley's is the focus of the movie.
- Jeff actually acknowledges his Complete Monster nature after sufficient Mind Rape by Hayley; after ranting about young girls driving him crazy while stabbing one of his pictures with a kitchen knife he admits "This is me."
- Is he acknowledging it or is he only accepting what she has said as true because she's completely shattered him?
- A bit of both. As he privately cofesses that this is who he really is, he actually thanks Hayley for helping him to drop his facade.
- Jeff actually acknowledges his Complete Monster nature after sufficient Mind Rape by Hayley; after ranting about young girls driving him crazy while stabbing one of his pictures with a kitchen knife he admits "This is me."
- Draco in Leather Pants: Similar to Sarah Connor, Hayley is seen by some as a righteous figure and paragon for feminism when in reality she's a sick and demented girl who tracks down child molesters so she has someone she can torture to death.
- Just Here for Godzilla: That torture scene.
- Mind Game Ship: Hayley and Jeff's entire interaction with each other.
- Misaimed Fandom - The ambiguity of the film strikes again.
- Moral Event Horizon - Both characters are complete monsters, and both cross the moral event horizon. Jeff crosses it offscreen, in the backstory, by virtue of being a predatory hebephile, Hayley during the castration scene. Neither character is a good person at all.
- Narrowed It Down to The Guy I Recognize: Surprisingly subverted. Sandra Oh, despite appearing in several famous movies and shows (including a starring role in Grey's Anatomy) has been placed in a OneSceneWonder role as an extra; despite being very suspicious of Hayley, she disappears for the rest of the plot (besides Jeff using her suspicion to try and make Hayley paranoid) acting as a human RedHerring of sorts.