Candyman (1992) TriStar/Horror RT: 102 minutes Rated R (violence and gore, nudity, language) Director: Bernard Rose Screenplay: Bernard Rose Music: Philip Glass Cinematography: Anthony B. Richmond Release date: October 16, 1992 (US) Cast: Virginia Madsen, Tony Todd, Xander Berkeley, Kasi Lemmons, Vanessa Williams, DeJuan Guy, Gilbert Lewis, Carolyn Lowery, Barbara Alston, Sarina Grant, Marianna Elliott, Ted Raimi, Michael Culkin, Rusty Schwimmer, John Rensenhouse, Stanley DeSantis. Box Office: $25.7M (US)
Rating: ****
I’d like to start by clearing up a common misconception. The character of Candyman is NOT your typical slasher movie boogeyman like Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers or Freddy Krueger. He’s more of a tragic figure like Dracula or Frankenstein’s monster. He carries with him 100 years of pain, anguish and anger over the injustice of his murder at the hands of a lynch mob for daring to fall in love with a wealthy white girl. His death is one for the books. A talented artist commissioned to paint the girl’s portrait, the educated son of a slave was chased down by a hired mob that sawed off his right hand with a rusty saw. Then they smeared him all over with honey and watched as bees stung him to death. His corpse was burned and his ashes were scattered on the land on which Chicago housing project Cabrini-Green now stands. He exists now (in ’92, that is) as an urban legend.
I saw Candyman the night it opened. I had a positive feeling about it. It looked good in the previews. Plus, it’s an adaptation of a short story (“The Forbidden”) by Clive Barker, the horrormeister behind Hellraiser and Nightbreed, two of the better scary movies of recent years. My feeling about it proved to be well-founded. I LOVED it! It’s freaking scary. I scream-jumped THREE times! That’s the surest sign of an effective horror movie I know.
According to urban legend, if a person says Candyman five times in a mirror, he will appear and kill the summoner. This has to be BS, right? It’s the kind of things kids at a sleepover dare each other to do. But what if it’s not BS? Urban legends tap into our deepest fears like death by murder. Because of that, people tend to think twice about their veracity when they hear them. What if they became real if enough people believed in them? What if they fed on the psychic weight of faith and fear? What would that mean for skeptics or disbelievers? That’s the foundation for the terror in Candyman.
University of Illinois grad student Helen Lyle (Madsen, The Hot Spot) is about to learn a shocking truth about the subject of her thesis. She’s researching urban legends with her friend and colleague Bernie (Lemmons, The Silence of the Lambs) when she stumbles across the legend of Candyman, an evil spirit that supposedly resides at Cabrini-Green, a tenement notorious for its high crime rate. It’s rumored that Candyman, who has a pointed hook where his right hand used to be, killed a woman that lived there. Her curiosity piqued, Helen decides to look into the matter.
Things happen that allow Helen to believe she’s debunked the Candyman legend once and for all. HA! That doesn’t last. She soon discovers he’s real and really pissed off about being discredited. Innocent blood must be spilled to make people believe in him again. Long story short, Helen ultimately finds herself locked up in a psychiatric hospital framed for murder. Here we have another deep fear for the vengeful spirit to exploit, the fear of being falsely accused of a crime and not being believed by friends, loved ones and authorities.
Candyman is played by Tony Todd who previously starred in the remake of Night of the Living Dead and would go on to play creepy funeral home owner Bludworth in three of the five Final Destination movies. Candyman is his signature role. I can’t imagine anybody but Todd in the role. He’s terrific. He creates a character who’s equal parts malevolent and sad. He’s a misunderstood monster. He kills, but it isn’t random. He kills to prove he exists. He feels a special connection to Helen, but I’ll leave that for you to discover. As Helen, Madsen does great work. She convincingly conveys her character’s deteriorating mental state as she falls deeper into the Candyman rabbit hole. Xander Berkeley (T2) plays her husband, a university professor who everybody but Helen knows is screwing an attractive female student. Well, I knew it from the moment I saw him with the student. In any event, he’s slime. They both get what they deserve at the end.
Directed by Bernard Rose (Paperhouse), Candyman makes excellent use of natural urban locations. So many horror movies are set in big creepy houses in isolated places. The city can be just as effective with its crowded projects ruled by gangs. There’s also something unsettling about graffiti-strewn tenement buildings and vacant apartments not fit for human habitation. It’s an ideal place for evil to dwell. The cinematography by Anthony B. Richmond is vivid and dreamlike. The score by Philip Glass (Koyaanisqatsi) perfectly augments the eerie, haunting tone of the film. The gore effects are nice and bloody without being excessive. They never overwhelm the film’s frightening central ideas.
Needless to say, Candyman instantly became one of my all-time favorite horror movies. It is positively chilling. It has a cool premise and a truly frightening killer. Even better, the killer has a personality; he’s not just some masked homicidal maniac. There’s context to the violence*. As such, it hits harder than any killing in a Friday the 13th or Halloween sequel. Candyman is a true horror classic.
* = I still could have done without the dog getting killed.
