Striking ‘Candyman’ sequel a worthy successor with scares, social commentary
Worthy successor to 1992 horror classic combines traditional GOTCHA! moments with running themes about urban legends, institutional racism and social class warfare
From the opening moments of Nia DaCosta’s gory yet strikingly beautiful and socially relevant “Candyman,” it’s clear we’re in for an especially haunting and just plain entertaining thrill ride.
Before we even settle in for the main story, we hear Sammy Davis Jr.’s version of “The Candy Man” from 1972 mixed with the sounds of a swarm of bees, and we see mirror images of the various studio logos, including the MGM lion, involved in this film. After a prologue set in the Cabrini-Green Homes in 1977, the opening credits flash over a montage of the Chicago skyline — as seen from below, through a dense white fog, in the middle of the night. This, too, is a kind of mirror image of the opening titles in the 1992 “Candyman,” where the camera swooped directly above the streets of Chicago.
Buckle up, kids. And be careful what you say into that mirror.
“Candyman” is billed as a spiritual and direct sequel to the 1992 original (ignoring the events of the two forgotten “Candyman” follow-ups), and director/co-writer DaCosta, along with co-writer and producer Jordan Peele (“Get Out”), have delivered a worthy successor with far superior production values and an equally powerful story combining traditional GOTCHA! horror moments and some suitably gory splatter moments with running themes about institutional racism, social class warfare and how unreliable narrators will shape and shift urban fairy tales to suit their worldviews.
Oh, and it’s also wickedly funny at times, as when a young woman says she just might say “Candyman” five times into a mirror, and the creepy guy trying to hook up with her retorts, “Do it. Necrophilia has always been on my bucket list.”
This “Candyman” is set primarily in the present day and specifically in the gentrified Near North Side neighborhood that a generation earlier was the site of the notorious Cabrini-Green complex. In a powerful and resonant performance, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays Anthony, a celebrated young artist (who is almost always labeled “a Black artist”) who lives with his girlfriend Brianna (Teyonah Paris, doing fine work), an art gallery director, in a posh apartment.
Anthony has been struggling and is looking to explore new themes, and he’s intrigued when Brianna’s brother Troy (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) tells the urban legend of Candyman through a shadow box presentation. It’s not accurate to the “real” events as we know from the original film, as the Helen Lyle character is now painted as the real villain, who went on a killing spree and tried to sacrifice a baby in a bonfire, when we know she gave up her own life to save the child. But it’s still one chilling story.
Anthony’s curiosity about the Candyman turns into a full-on obsession after he hears more about the legend from Colman Domingo’s William Burke, who claims to have had an encounter with the hookhanded specter when he was a child. Anthony has a burst of feverish intensity as he creates a series of paintings depicting violence and racial injustice — and that’s right about the time the body count starts piling up, as a looming figure guts an art gallery owner and his assistant, then takes out a number of girls in the bathroom of a North Side college prep school. Director DaCosta does a brilliant job of alternating the visuals of these kills; sometimes we see the murders in silhouette, while on other occasions it’s more about crackling sound effects and dripping blood than hardcore close-ups.
This is a visually striking film, containing scenes brimming with eye-catching artwork on the walls, and color-coordinated rooms and hallways in shades of blues and oranges and greens and stark whites. Even something as simple as Anthony navigating a curving hallway has a claustrophobic, vaguely nightmarish journey. There are a number of callbacks to the original film that add layers to the story, and constant reminders of how the Candyman legend is something that sprung up from decades of very real, racist violence — starting with the story of Tony Todd’s Daniel Robitaille, who in the 19th century was tortured and murdered by a mob after falling in love with and impregnating a white woman. The social commentary is not subtle, but it’s legitimate and justified. We end up looking in the mirror on a number of levels.
If you want to say “Candyman” five times, go ahead. I think I’ll stop at four just to play it safe.