Review: Candyman (1992)

Candyman (1992)

Rated R for violence and gore

Score: 4 out of 5

Candyman is a movie that it took me a little while to warm up to. A slow burn that relies on metaphor and things that are unstated but implied, this film, based on the Clive Barker short story "The Forbidden", is a dark exploration of urban poverty and segregation in which the literal ghosts of a racist past continue to haunt people in the present. It's a moody film with an atmospheric Philip Glass score and a career-defining performance by Tony Todd as the titular villain, one that will likely disappoint if you go in expecting the kind of violent slasher that cult classic horror films of its era often were, but will provide some very effective chills and quite a bit to think about if you instead let it sneak up on you.

Our protagonist is Helen Lyle, a young grad student in Chicago writing a thesis on urban legends who decides to investigate that of the Candyman, a ghost who is reportedly summoned when somebody says his name five times in the mirror, at which point he shows up to gut them with a hook attached to the bloody stump where his right hand should be. Interested in the legend but obviously dismissive of the idea that ghosts are real, she winds up haunted by the Candyman as her investigation of the legend's origin brings her to the notorious Cabrini-Green Homes housing project, soon finding herself possessed by him and connected to multiple murders. The Candyman, you see, is not happy that Helen's research may cause people to stop believing in him, and so he instead uses her to perpetuate his legend. From there, Helen spirals down an increasingly dark path that can only end in one way.

I'm not surprised that the remake of this film, due out next year, is being produced by Jordan Peele of Get Out and Us fame, because in many ways, this is the kind of horror classic that's right in his wheelhouse. While Barker's original short story was set in Liverpool and revolved around British classism, writer/director Bernard Rose's take moved the setting to Chicago and reworked the story into one about American racism. In life, the Candyman was the son of a slave whose father became a self-made man making shoes during the Civil War. As such, he was raised in polite society and later became a successful painter, only to find out the hard way that money did not, in fact, whiten him when, in 1890, he fell in love with a white woman whose father hired him to paint her portrait. Following a vicious and brutal lynching (I'll spare you the gory details; let's just say it involved bees) courtesy of the father, who still regarded him, for all his wealth and success, as just another black man, the Candyman became a vengeful spirit who seeks to keep his legend alive any way he can. The themes of the cycle of poverty and racism keeping people down are reflected in far more than just the Candyman's backstory; a point is made early on that Helen's middle-class condominium complex is identical in structure to the Cabrini-Green projects save for the fact that, having been built in a nice neighborhood, it was given all the amenities, while Helen has a bad run-in with a gangster who uses the identity of the Candyman to boost his street cred. As the Candyman torments Helen over the course of the film, it is made to feel like supernatural revenge for how he had been treated by white America, as Helen is put through the humiliating grinder of mistreatment at the hands of police who wrongly suspect her of crimes that the Candyman framed her for. It is The Onion's "Judge Rules White Girl Will Be Tried As Black Adult" video, played as a horror movie in which the ghost of a lynched black man sets out to make sure she gets the full treatment and is made into the sort of monster that he was turned into.

And damn, is the black man in question a scary motherfucker. Tony Todd's low, booming voice rumbles like an earthquake almost from the moment he introduces himself to Helen, in the performance that made him every horror filmmaker's ideal for a different kind of scary black dude. He's like an evil version of Morgan Freeman whose arrival on the scene lets you know that somebody is fucked, even in films like Final Destination where he's just a harbinger of doom rather than an actively malicious force in his own right like he is here. His long fur coat, evoking both 19th century class and the heroes and villains of '70s blaxploitation films, only adds to his dark charisma, and when you see what he's got underneath it (above the waist, you sick perverts), emphasis is placed on the "dark" thanks to some sparingly-used but high-quality effects work on his rotting, bee-filled body. (I can hardly believe that Eddie Murphy was their first choice for the role; now that would've made a very different film.) Virginia Madsen has a lot of work to do with not getting outshined by Todd, but she too is stellar as she conveys Helen's downward spiral, starting out looking like a vanilla horror heroine before evolving into somebody who grows increasingly unhinged in the face of the things happening to and around her -- such that you can't help but wonder if the police have a point when they lock her up. The score by Philip Glass, when combined with director Bernard Rose's visuals, lends a great deal to the film's dark atmosphere, turning the streets of Chicago's roughest neighborhoods into thoroughly modern horror environments to match any haunted castles or abandoned farmhouses. Parts of the film were shot in the actual Cabrini-Green Homes, a place that, by all accounts, didn't really need any embellishment to come off as one of the scariest places on Earth, and the film's use of that setting does a great job painting a portrait of a place whose denizens have been all but abandoned by the system. Such is best evidenced with the character of Anne-Marie, a Cabrini-Green resident played by Vanessa A. Williams (no relation to the beauty queen of the same name) who tells Helen about the legend of the Candyman. When we're introduced to her, she's wearing a work uniform complete with nametag, the film consciously showing us that she's not a layabout "welfare queen" stereotype; she clearly has a job, and her little apartment isn't thoroughly run-down. But it's just as clear that that job isn't doing a whole lot to actually help her do more than just get by, given that she's living in Cabrini-Green and is clearly stressed-out by her living and work situation.

This is, to be sure, a film that takes some time to really get moving, and even when it does, it can seem like it takes a lot of odd detours. Much is left to the viewer's imagination, and while all of the important plot questions are answered by the end, plenty more is left to hang in the air. One subtext that I picked up on throughout the film is that the Candyman seemed to be treating Helen almost as a reincarnation of the young woman whose affair with him ended in his lynching, lending a whole other layer of subtext to his torment of her, especially once the ending rolls around. This was something that was never spelled out in the movie itself, and which I haven't even seen other critics really discuss when analyzing the film, but for me, the clues felt uncanny. The film demands that you pay attention to it as you watch, because you will probably miss a fair bit on your first viewing, and initially it can be fairly slow-going in its first act outside of a pair of flashbacks. At times, I found myself waiting for the film to really get moving; I expect that it will hold up a fair bit better upon a repeat viewing, but it's not exactly a rollercoaster.

The Bottom Line

Candyman is a dark, moody exploration of racism and classism that's also a damn fine horror movie once it gets moving. Together with Hellraiser, it's a great starting point for anybody interested in the work of Clive Barker (they apparently changed little but the setting and some characters' ethnicity in the translation to the screen), and it's also one of the more memorable "big city" horror films out there.