As part of her studies of urban legends, post-graduate student Helen (Virginia Madsen) is investigating story of Candyman (Tony Todd), a hook-handed ghost who haunts the social housing complex, Cabrini-Green.
Helen’s intrusion puts her in the sights of the phantom, who sees her as the perfect vehicle for perpetuating his legend…
Sometimes I like to track movies by their critical reception. It is a perverse tactic because I find it harder to come up with my own ideas about the movie.
Sometimes I like to track movies by their critical reception. It is a perverse tactic because I find it harder to come up with my own ideas about the movie.
I was really looking forward to the remake of Candyman. I had only seen pieces of the original years ago so it wasn’t a factor. I was more interested because I loved the director’s last movie. Nia DaCosta’s Little Woods was one of my favourite movies from whatever year it came out in - it felt like a modern noir, and it dealt with serious economic and social issues with subtlety and nuance.
I bring up that balance of genre and social content because those two things seem to be the focus of the critiques of Candyman 2021 - at least the ones I read.
It made me more curious to check back in to where it all began, in 1992.
Based on a short story by Clive Barker (Hellraiser) and moved to an American setting, Candyman has elements which are reminiscent of a slasher but its themes and baroque style, it is closer to a modern gothic.
First, a pretty superficial thought: Candyman is well-crafted.
There is such a sense of precision to the aesthetic choices, its composition and sound design, and the way tension escalates through the movie, particularly in its first half.
The second half of the movie gets a bit more into the grand guignol.
I thought the movie would be about a spectral figure haunting Helen because her apartment building was built over the scene of his murder - the building is revealed to have originally been a public housing project, like Cabrini-Green. I kept expecting some kind of Poltergeist-style reveal about her building.
But no. I guess Candyman is sustained by the fear of the people who live at Cabrini Green - maybe it is whoever is in proximity?
Helen thinks she knows what she is doing, but she is completely out of her depth.
The first time I watched it, there was a point midway through where it felt like the movie became blunt, when Tony Todd re-appears and begins rampaging through the movie.
This time, that chaotic turn felt more shocking.
The scene where she wakes up in Anne-Marie McCoy’s (Vanessa Estelle Williams) apartment is horrifying - the discovery of the dead dog; the empty cot; the terrified mother attacking her…
The movie has done such a good job of lulling you into a specific sense of suspense AND stasis, that the escalation of violence is genuinely distrubing.
There is something to be critiqued in the movie’s focus on Helen - from what I hear, last year’s version of Candyman is closer to what I thought this movie would be.
The third act is based around Candyman’s attempts to convince Helen to join him, as a replacement for his lost love.
Candyman is ultimately more concerned with finding ways to maintain the fear the residents of Cabrini Green have for him, and Helen has to make the ultimate sacrifice to foil his plans.
Ironically, Helen’s sacrifice leads to her own immortality as she takes Candyman’s place as a spectre haunting those who wronged her - although the ending makes me wonder if her new status as Candyman’s successor will be short-lived.
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