Candyman

1992's original Candyman film stood out at the time as a horror film that took itself seriously, and was genuinely scary.  When other long-standing horror icons like Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees were getting campy send offs in "final" entries around the same time (1991's Freddy's Dead, and 93's Jason Goes to Hell, respectively), Bernard Rose's film, which was inspired by a Clive Barker short story, was an eerie and suspenseful tale that took a hard look at urban legends, racism, and had genuine ideas mixed in with the blood and gore audiences expected at the time.

Nearly 30 years later, producer and head writer Jordan Peele (Get Out and Us), along with talented young director Nia DaCosta and co-writer Win Rosenfeld, have resurrected the franchise with a film that forgets the inferior two sequels, and instead serves as a direct follow up to the original film.  And just like the original, this film manages to be artful, suspenseful, graphic, and truly memorable in a way that few mainstream horror films are these days.  Just last week, I reviewed The Night House, which a lot of my fellow critics loved, but I found to be cliched and uninteresting, despite a stellar cast and a strong visual look.  Here is a thriller that is truly alive, kinetic, and as thought provoking and startling as the original.  This is an update done right, and also finds some clever ways to cover exposition-heavy moments, such as implementing silhouetted puppets to reenact the backstory.  It continues to establish Peele as a true master of mixing social issues with horror traditions, and cements DaCosta as a visionary filmmaker with a keen eye for character and suspense.

One of the more interesting aspects of the film is how it builds upon the mythology of the monster originally dreamed up by Barker.  It pays tribute to the original in ways that will not be revealed here, while also adding a whole new level that has never been explored before.  And while there are plenty of callbacks and even some surprise cameos for fans of the first to look out for, this movie makes sure that anyone can sit down and watch it and be involved.  As before, the setting is built around the Cabrini Green housing projects of Chicago, which have gone through a massive change since we last saw them, thanks to gentrification.  However, the legend of the Candyman (an entity with a hook for a hand that can appear if you look in a mirror and say his name five times) still haunts this area, and as we learn, is much deeper than previously established.

Rising young artist Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II)) has recently moved into the gentrified Cabrini Green with his girlfriend Brianna (Toyonah Parris), and begins digging into his neighborhood's past, looking for inspiration.  Perhaps inevitably, he begins to dig up the legend of the Candyman, thanks mostly to William (Colman Domingo), a local who had his own encounter with the entity when he was a boy.  Anthony starts to become obsessed with the Candyman, and the idea behind it.  It affects not just his art, which becomes violent and graphic, but his personality, and eventually even his own body starts to show signs of bizarre rot and peeling.  It all leads up to a lot of secrets, and a dark connection to events in the original that, again, will not be revealed here.  And while it's not essential to watch the original movie before this, you may want to in order to get full enjoyment.

Unlike the update to Halloween a few years ago, which I felt played up the gore to such levels that it killed whatever suspense could have been created, Candyman manages to strike the balance between social commentary, fresh ideas, truly disturbing and frightening sequences, and even more disturbing scenes of violence.  The movie is not so much about the ghostly killer himself (although he seems to constantly be hanging over every scene in the film, even when he's not in physical form), but rather in Anthony, his obsession, and his downfall.  Abdul-Mateen II creates a character that is easy to follow into the darkest corners the film forces him into, and it's truly tragic when he realizes too late just what he has unleashed within himself and those around him.  When the grisly murders begin, and they seem to have a connection around his art, he actually is kind of thrilled to hear his name on the news, and excited for the publicity.  As things spiral out of his control, and he begins to learn the truth, he learns too late that perhaps his obsession was inevitable.  It's a very flawed and human protagonist we seldom see in a blood-soaked horror film, and he manages to earn our interest and our sympathy.

But again, I want to stress the wonderful direction of Nia DaCosta, who wrote the script with Peele and Rosenfeld, and shows a tremendous amount of style and visceral art with her debut Hollywood feature. (Her previous film, an indie called Little Woods, is unseen by me.) She creates such a sinister mood here, even though we seldom see the titular monster.  And when the film does require the gore to flow, she does so in a way that emphasizes the brutality of the sequence without rubbing our faces in it.  It's disquieting and haunting, particularly a scene involving some rather unfortunate high school girls in a bathroom, but it does not shy away from giving the fans who have came for this kind of stuff what she wants.  And rather than play up the jump scares, she creates a constantly tense atmosphere that I can seldom remember from a thriller of the past two years or so.  She's obviously a tremendous talent, and I hope Hollywood continues to use her well.  Her next film is for Marvel Studios, and while I look forward to what she can do, I hope the Mainstream Cinema Machine does not chew her up into just another blockbuster director.  This film proves she deserves much more.

Just like the 1992 film, Candyman goes beyond the current horror climate, and gives us something truly memorable.  It's a lean and well-thought through film that clearly has been designed to unnerve its audience, and it succeeds in so many ways.  It's also a rare example of a film not just paying tribute to a a classic, but taking it into exciting new directions.  

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