Jordan Peele and friends invite us to their take on Candyman this year. I reviewed it this Halloween season, because the original Candyman (1992) scared me as a child. The atmosphere in that film felt oppressive (even though I didn’t know what that word was then) and it never let up. I remember directly after the 1992 film I looked at every fur-collared trench coat with a pit in my stomach. The original was very much in the narrative of a white woman. This new Candyman goes in another direction.
Premise: For decades, the housing projects of Chicago’s Cabrini-Green were terrorized by a ghost story about a supernatural, hook-handed killer. In present day, an artist begins to explore the macabre history of Candyman, not knowing it would unravel his sanity and unleash a terrifying wave of violence that puts him on a collision course with destiny. (Google)
What I Liked: I appreciate a story being told those the lens of a characters of color. Often we are the throwaway victims in horror films. Peele and friends make it a point to keep us front and center (and even behind the camera – kudos to director Nia DaCosta).
A true to the magic that makes Peele such a great storyteller – the opening credits are reversed images as if mirror reflections. The disorientation starts early and pulls the viewer in.
Say his name, …. an expression of protest and rage has a manifested form.
It so interesting how the film can be viewed as a story of the rage of racial injustice.
There’s a deeper (and poignant) meaning behind Say His Name. The film explores what that phrase means in the content of Candyman. It’s an expression of protest and rage and the form it manifests into is the Candyman…any black male who has suffered racial injustice and demonized.
I love that take, but What I think was missing is a bit more time to develop that madness in our tortured artist, Anthony McCoy (Yayah Abdul-Mateen II). Like Helen Lyle (of the original) Anthony is drawn to uncover the story by the legend. He unleashes something by Saying His Name. Yet it hard to believe what really driving Anthony mad. There were opportunities to layer the story by adding levels. The lives of the black characters around him for example the aggression and microaggressions against their bodies seem to be fuel for Anthony’s art, but we hardly see much of that unraveling him. The horror should be focused on the change that we know is happening, but it shouldn’t feel inevitable.
Verdict: Despite this, I left the film with a deeper appreciation for why people fear the candyman but always why there’s so much power in saying any of their names!