CANDYMAN (August 2021)

CANDYMAN

(August 2021)

“Are you ready for the sacrament?”

The early ‘90’s pre-Scream period saw cinematic horror do some interesting things, like masquerade under the guise of tragic, inevitably doomed romances, its darker, malevolent streak secreted beneath the more palatable facades of love stories.
One such notable title is Francis Ford Coppola’s exquisite phantasmagoria, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992).
Another from the same year, is Bernard Rose’s Candyman.
 
“It was the projects. Affordable housing that had a particularly bad reputation.”
“You would never know.”
“Yeah, because they tore it down and gentrified the sh!t out of it.”
“Translation: White people built the ghetto, and then erased it when they realized they built the ghetto.”
 
Adapted from Clive Barker’s Books of Blood short story, “The Forbidden,” Rose’s Candyman transplanted the narrative’s action from England’s council estates to America’s housing projects, grafting themes of racism and gentrification (among others) onto the source material, like wallpaper of a very particular pattern laid over the original story’s structure.
Nia DaCosta’s Candyman has these same preoccupations, serving as both a deeper exploration of the original adaptation’s thematics, as well as a continuation of its central narrative.
 
“Some of the things that have happened in Cabrini over the years, violence just so extreme, so bizarre… It’s almost as if violence became the ritual.
“The worst part… the residents are afraid to call the police. A code of honor perhaps, fear of the police themselves…
“The easy answer is always, ‘Candyman did it.’”
 
DaCosta’s story (the screenplay is credited to her and co-writers Jordan Peele and Win Rosenfeld) revolves around Yahya Abdul-Mateen II’s Anthony, an up-and-coming artist badly in need of inspiration, which he finds in the gruesome urban folklore tale of the Candyman.

“I am the writing on the walls. I am the sweet smell of blood on the street. The buzz that echoes in the alleyways.”
 
Now, as is usual ‘round these parts, I’ll refrain from saying anything more in terms of the plot.
What I believe I can say though, is, just as Rose’s Candyman, despite appearances, didn’t play the way a “regular” slasher film does, neither does DaCosta’s.
And though there is a romantic component to the narrative, it isn’t as central as it was in Rose’s original, which was decidedly a love story, about the love between man and woman, between killer and victim, between deity and worshipper.
DaCosta’s take is more interested in community and legacy and who has ultimate control over society’s grand narrative, pulling its camera back so its lens can take in more of the macro, as opposed to the personal intimacy Rose’s dark love story evinced.
 
“When something leaves a stain, even if you wash it out, it’s still there. You can feel it, a, uh, uh, uh, uh, a thinning, deep in the fabric.
“This neighborhood got caught in a loop! The sh!t got stained in the exact same spot over and over ’til it finally rotted from the inside out!”
 
Ultimately, this new Candyman is a worthy successor to Rose’s original adaptation, and like it, is the kind of horror I treasure, the kind that has Something to say.
And DaCosta and company say it very well indeed…
So if this all sounds like horror to suit your tastes as well, then by all means, check it out…
 
And, oh yes…
Say his name…
 
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, who can take tomorrow,
Dip it in a dream,
Separate the sorrow and collect up all the cream?
Dip it in a dream,
Separate the sorrow and collect up all the cream?
The Candy Man…
The Candy Man can…”
--“The Candy Man”
   Sammy Davis Jr.

Parting Shot: Since the art world also plays a central role in its narrative, Velvet Buzzsaw makes an excellent double feature with this particular Candyman.

  
(Candyman OS’ courtesy of impawards.com.)