Barring the works of Jordan Peele, few other horror flicks are as socially and culturally resonant as the Candyman films. Both Bernard Rose’s cult classic and Nia DaCosta’s reboot from last year have a lot to say, and know how to get our attention in doing so. They use mythology to show us that which is terrifyingly real - both in the 19th century, 1992, and 2021.
Even Candyman neophytes may be familiar with the urban legend; utter his name five times before a mirror, and the villain will come to swiftly slay you with his hook. But what lies beneath this Bloody Mary-like lore is a rich history of historical subtext that gives Candyman its true color. Both DaCosta and Rose work to show the figure as not so much a Krueger-like monster or supernatural entity, but rather an amalgamation of everything wrong with history whose tirade still burdens society today. Like those other monsters, Candyman never just disappears back into the mirror - his influence is a real and permanent one.
Both films differ substantially in how they choose to unravel Candyman’s legacy. Rose’s 1992 effort, perhaps the scarier of the two, is a supernatural slasher with gothic overtones, whereas DaCosta’s feature is a modern confection of satire and horror. However, for whatever separates the films, they are united in both their importance and urgency. They challenge us to dare say his name.
A Timeless Origin Story of Racial Violence
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment
If there’s anything that seems to unite most horror films out there, it’s that we are not supposed to feel for the villain. Even if they possess some sort of zany origin story, they are undoubtedly a source of evil, never to be sympathized with. Candyman dares us to challenge that wave of thinking. In Rose’s film, the story is told through the perspective of a White graduate student named Helen Lyle, whose research on urban legends causes her to become acquainted with Candyman and accidentally summon him. DaCosta’s film, moreover, sees a Black Chicago artist, Anthony McCoy, summon Candyman not out of a skeptical, but rather creative urge. He lives nowhere near, however, Cabrini Green, the district that Candyman haunts. Both films follow a relative outsider into the thrall of obsession, delusion, and terror.
The origin story of Candyman goes, as Helen and Anthony come to find, that he was once the son of a slave who came up in polite society. He became a talented artist and began doing portraits of the surrounding elites. Eventually, though, he fell in love with the daughter of a rich landowner; when she became pregnant, her father sent a group to cut off his hand. They smeared him with honey so that he was stung to death by bees; and then they burned him on a pyre. They spread his ashes over Cabrini Green.
Candyman’s origins are a reminder of the timeless nature of racial violence within America. Why, then, is Candyman still the antagonist of this story? Both films boldly challenge us to entertain this question, while never hesitating to unveil the true terror of his influence.
The Spirit of Cabrini Green
Universal Pictures
Cabrini Green itself is a character within the Candyman films. Particularly in Rose’s film, its residents are dwelled upon as figures at the fringes of society. They live in constant fear. We meet several working class residents throughout the film to remind us of this fact, and reinforce the notion that Helen is an outsider. Through her perspective, the residents of Cabrini Green are a reminder of disenfranchisement caused by systemic racism within America. Yet still, Helen can’t see beyond the lens of her own obsession with Candyman, and, even by Rose, the residents of Cabrini Green aren’t explored very much beyond how they relate to Helen.
DaCosta’s film takes an enticing new approach to Cabrini Green, meditating particularly on modern gentrification and its effects. Where does the urban legend of Candyman still stand, in this new world of art galleries and creative spaces? DaCosta makes the captivating decision of putting her protagonist in the middle of this conflict; he is a Black man who lives nowhere near the slums of Cabrini Green, but rather in a hip apartment with his fellow artistic-minded girlfriend.
Despite this modern new direction, the history of Cabrini Green is still deeply embedded into DaCosta’s film. We don’t open in 2019, but rather in 1977, when the police search for a homeless man named Sherman Fields with an alleged hook for a hand. As Candyman takes on many new faces, so does Cabrini Green - but it is the spirit of him that always lingers, haunting the area in more ways than one. For the disenfranchised residents of Cabrini Green, Candyman is a permanent aspect of their reality.
The Many Faces of Candyman
Physically speaking, Candyman might be one of the most decipherable antagonists horror has ever had to offer us. Both DaCosta and Rose’s film lean into the visual terror of the bogeyman and his myriad symbols. There is the hooked hand. The bees. The terrible scars and the menacing smile.
Candyman’s real power, though, exists in the fact that he is not one person. In DaCosta’s film, Candyman is changing all the time; he is not just one figure, but many, with his physical host being the thing that changes. Candyman can be found in our world, too. As the star of the film, Colman Domingo says:
“Candyman’ is not just one person. ‘Candyman’ is, if I can put it in more modern terms, George Floyd. ‘Candyman’ is Breonna Taylor. ‘Candyman’ is the monster that white people have made up, which is Black people. ‘Candyman’ is all of these men and women who’ve died at the hands of systemic racism.” Candyman might be based in myth, but the film’s reality is staggeringly real.
