A SUCCESSFUL FRIGHTFEST
THIS VERSION OF CANDYMAN CHECKS OFF MOST OF THE HORROR MOVIE MUST-DOS
Candyman
Cast: Yahya Abdul-mateen II,
Teyonah Parris Director: Nia Dacosta
Duration: 1 h 31 m
Legend has it that if you repeat a movie five times, the franchise will implode. Just look at Death Wish, Die Hard or Dirty Harry. Try to ignore The Fast and the Furious. And wait and see on Indiana Jones.
But if that’s the case then Candyman has at least one more kick at the can. The franchise began as a well-remembered horror movie from 1992 that begat two less than stellar sequels and now, in true 21st-century fashion, a reboot that has the same name as the original and is also sort of a sequel but ignores the other two sequels. Try saying that five times fast!
The new Candyman shares the same bones (and prosthetic hook) as the original, in which an evil ghost would appear if you said his name five times in a mirror. Mirror-based divination has a name — captromancy — and has been practised for millennia. It might even be the first case of a new technology (mirrors!) being used in the telling of a horror story. Take that, The Ring!
In the latest version of the tale, struggling artist Anthony Mccoy (Yahya Abdul-mateen II) becomes obsessed with the legend after hearing a spooky story from the brother of his girlfriend/ patron Brianna (Teyonah Parris). As in the 1992 film, there’s a racial component to the ghoul, who is said to have first appeared in the 1890s after a local Black artist was lynched.
Candyman was directed and co-written by up-andcomer Nia Dacosta (currently at work on 2022’s The Marvels) but also co-written and produced by Jordan Peele (Get Out, Us), which might explain its preoccupation with race.
Anthony and his friends have several discussions about the tensions between Blacks, whites and poor artists of any colour in neighbourhood gentrification, including Chicago’s Cabrini-green projects, where he grew up. One can almost imagine a paper on the projects as a modern equivalent of the “ancient burial ground” in American horror.
Anyway, Anthony does the quintuple-unthinkable and, soon after, gets a nasty bee sting that refuses to heal. He also runs into William Burke (Colman Domingo), who runs a local laundry and is a fount of information on the Candyman legend. I’m guessing he also knows how to get blood out of clothes, which will be a major concern by the time the movie is over.
The film is an effective body of horror (those stings! that hook!) that uses jump scares but also more subtle forms of fearmongering to get under its audience’s skin. While some of the violence is shown in gruesome closeup, other instances take place off screen or, in one supremely creepy moment, in pitch-blackness. A cacophony of squelches and cracks in total darkness? It’s the epitome of a skeleton in a closet! Dacosta also does a great job of tucking mirrors and other reflective surfaces into the corners of almost every shot. By the time Anthony boards an elevator with three mirrored sides — and the doors close to reveal a fourth — you’re about ready to jump out of your skin.
And while the movie has a problematic ending — it seems uncertain whether or not to explicitly set itself up for that dangerous fifth instalment, and thus concludes on what I can only call a semi-cliffhanger — it isn’t enough to derail all that’s come before. With its combination of social commentary and terror, not to mention a withering skewering of pretentious art-talk, Candyman is a successful frightfest. That bears repeating — just not more than four times. ∏∏∏