Do I actually believe that if I were to look into the mirror and say the name Candyman or Bloody Mary that an evil, vengeful spirit would come after me?No. Of course not. I'm not superstitious in that regard.
Have I ever attempted to do such a thing?
Also no. That's a terrible idea. So maybe I am a bit superstitious or paranoid?
Because of that, this sort of urban legend makes for great horror premise. That's part of the reason why Supernatural is a fun show because they dealt with all sorts of urban legends, especially in the first few seasons. They even had a Bloody Mary episode with mirrors that I think is quite fantastic.
Yet Candyman itself is a horror franchise that had for some reason escaped me. So I took the opportunity yesterday and today to catch up on Candyman. The OG and the new sequel that came out last weekend. I haven't yet seen the other two sequels, but they did the 2018 Halloween thing where they made a direct sequel to the original, with the same exact title, that made the others irrelevant. So those weren't necessary for me to watch for the time being. But I'll get to them. Eventually.
I have to say that I rather enjoyed the OG Candyman. It's a 1992 film that takes heavy inspiration from the decade of classic slasher flicks that came before it. I can see why some would claim it as a horror classic itself. Yet it's not solely focused on a series of gratuitous kills with an all-powerful, immortal villain. Yes, there's a lot of bloody deaths and a rather ominous villain, but it's more interested in exploring the idea of an urban legend and playing around with that lore.
Having seen all 15 seasons of Supernatural (300+ episodes) and plenty of other 80s and 90s horror movies, I could nitpick some of the specifics with Candyman himself. He's essentially a vengeful spirit coming back to haunt people after getting brutally killed. Usually vengeful spirits target a specific group of people or area that are directly related to how they died. And if they're attached to a mirror or object, that object usually played a part in how they died. Candyman seems to have a lot of randomness to how he goes about things that doesn't necessarily attach itself to the lore that it sets up. And even though the rules or motives for why he's doing certain things or targeting certain people don't make sense, the movie doesn't always follow those somewhat nonsensical rules.
But nevertheless, the movie plays an interesting psychological game. He kills a girl at the beginning of the movie. But did he really? Or was it the boyfriend or a serial killer lurking? Us as the audience seem to have a clear vantage point for what happened, but it's a mystery for most of the characters inside the movie. And our main female lead, Helen, is investigating the Candyman lore, not from a detective or police angle, but for a thesis she's working on with a friend. Candyman eventually latches onto her for this and turns her into a victim, not by killing or hurting her, but by framing her for a series of murders. Making her look like she snapped and went on a killing spree. And when her only defense is "Candyman set me up," what is she supposed to do?
Yet despite it being obvious to the audience that Candyman is real, I could see an angle where people claim that Candyman actually isn't and is more metaphorical of her actually going crazy. But regardless of what actually happened, she herself becomes her own urban legend for generations after her to speculate on. And from their vantage point, her downward spiral is legitimately confusing and mysterious, which is why people gravitate towards it.
So yeah, the OG Candyman is a fun horror movie that you should definitely check out this Halloween season if you're like me and you've never seen it. It's currently available on Peacock's free tier.
The new Candyman in theaters? Well... that's a different story.
Following this movie's reaction has actually been kinda confusing. The critics score on Rotten Tomatoes is surprising high, certified fresh at 85 percent. Yet the audience score is more mixed at 74 percent, while the opening weekend audiences gave it a B on Cinemascore. For me personally, the select critics and movie people I follow on YouTube and Twitter have been very harsh, to the point of saying this movie is terrible. So I wasn't sure what to think.
Specifically, one movie podcast I follow called "Awards Radar" dove pretty deeply into their reaction as to why they all hated this movie. And not to seem like I'm just following on their bandwagon, but I can relate to a lot of points they were making, with the bulk of the argument being that this new movie has quite the identity crisis. It tries to be a lot of things, yet doesn't really commit to any of them. And at 91 minutes with credits, it feels like it came to an abrupt halt after dillydallying on trying to be too much, which results in it feeling fairly empty.
To the movie's credit, I do feel like this is a horror sequel that tried to do justice to its predecessor rather than being a throwaway cash grab full jump scares, bad acting, and terrible writing. It's a competently made film from a technical aspect and has a lot of talented people involved in front and behind the camera. New horror legend Jordan Peele produced the movie. Nia DaCosta directed the movie and I think she has a lot of potential as an up-and-coming director. Marvel agrees, too, as they have pegged her to direct "The Marvels," sequel to "Captain Marvel." And leading the charge in the acting department are Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Teyonah Parris, both of whom are fantastic in this movie.
But the movie stumbles really badly in its execution of the plot. And I think the core issue comes with them not having a strong grasp on a good idea. The movie wants to be a modern throwback to the 80s and 90s slashers, which isn't a bad idea. But on that note it gets caught up in the gratuitous kills department. As I mentioned, there are plenty of bloody kills in the original, but each one has a specific purpose in forwarding the narrative. It was a surprisingly focused film for a slasher. Yet this new one had many instances where it jumped to a scene with random side characters who have zero connection to the main characters, just to get a bunch of Candyman deaths, as if the movie was trying to fill a quota. They had nothing to do with anything. We introduced characters at a random part of town. Killed them. Then never talked about them again. And many of those kills were done off camera or through weird angles that aren't even satisfying if good horror kills are what you want.
But then conflicting with that is that it tried to be a Jordan Peele movie. By that I mean it tried to have serious social commentary in the realm of "Get Out." Not that I have an inherent issue with that. I love horror movies that dive deep into relevant themes. But we'd be going through this random slasher that focused on the wrong elements of a good slasher, then suddenly it become a movie about police brutality and gentrification. Almost with no setup or warning. Instead of having a resonant impact, those scenes felt out of place and shoehorned in. Then it went back to being a slasher, then tried to feed off the urban legends theme, but it all just clashed and fell apart.
The worst part of it is that, through this all, the main arc is just not very interesting. It follows the baby from the original as a grown adult. And that's a solid idea. But never once was I invested in him as a character. They attempted to do something similar with him that they did with Helen in the first movie, but the introduction to his conflict doesn't get off on the right foot. The movie then spends a lot of time regurgitating the first movie to us through lots of exposition. And though this whole murky journey, I kept waiting for it to go somewhere, but the direction it takes is strange and lacks the emotional punch of the original.
That paragraph might sound vague and nonsensical, but that's mainly because giving specifics with the plot dives into spoilers that I don't want to get into.
Jumping back to the starting point with the new, the movie does have an 85 percent on Rotten Tomatoes with a 74 percent audience score. That means there's a lot of people saying they like this movie or are giving it a pass. That means you might watch it and find that you disagree with me. And if so, that's fantastic. With that in mind, I can't recommend that you skip this movie, but I'm not giving it my personal stamp of approval. I think you should go see "The Night House" instead if you want a great horror film. But if you're curious, check it out, I suppose.
Grade (1992 film): 9/10
Grade (2021 film): 5/10
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