Candyman

Review

This movie is my favorite horror movie 3/4 days out of the week. I find it to be an almost perfect movie, the ambience, the acting, and Candyman himself really combine to create such a gorgeous movie.

This movie is about a grad student, Helen Lyle, who’s researching the Candyman mythos and in the process invokes his name to summon him as a joke. This leads to him actually appearing and beginning to kill people around Helen while people begin to blame her, unable to see the specter. All the while Candyman is trying to convince Helen to kill herself and to pledge her undying life to him, as she is the reincarnation of the love that Candyman had while he was still alive. The movie ends with Candyman taking the baby he kidnapped into a giant pile of kindling while Helen follows him to save the baby. After someone saw her crawl in and assumed she was Candyman the kindling is set on fire and Candyman and Heather burn alive, with Heather crawling out of the pile to save the baby as her last action.

The ambience that this movie has is incredible, for a good portion of the movie it feels more like a gothic romance with elements of horror. Every scene with Candyman and Helen interacting is so incredibly intimate and it really makes me feel things. The way he talks to her is just so intense and romantic with lines like "Be My Victim" and "Your death will be a tale to frighten children, to make lovers cling closer in rapture". The devotion that Candyman displays to Helen is just so intense and it's right up my alley.

Within the production they chose to hypnotize Virginia Madsen, Helen's actress, and I think that it really adds to the intimate feeling that Helen and Candyman's relationship has. Instead of screaming, Helen has this glazed-over, confused stare when Candyman approaches her and the added vunerability of the position Virginia Madsen is in really makes the scenes with them together all the more compelling.

The score for this movie is nigh perfect and is easily my favorite horror score. The fact that Philip Glass has disavowed this movie is really disappointing as this score is considered his best work by some and I personally think that the movie lives up to it's score when you look past the slasher format. The score is primarily an organ and a choir and it adds to the gothic romance of the film

My favorite aspect of this film is the unreliability of Helen as a narrator. We learn of Candyman as an urban legend, we find the man plaguing Cabrini Green under the moniker of 'Candyman' and yet Helen continues to see Candyman and people around her continue to die. It becomes clear about 3/4ths of the way that the visions of Candyman are definitely within Helen's head but does that mean he's not real? and does that mean that Helen has been the one killing the people around her this whole time? The movie never gives a clear answer and I really like that aspect of it. Some would probably say that the ending implies that the events were real but I think there is a valid interpretation of Helen's Husband seeing Helen as a manifestation of his guilt before killing himself., and that it's only that bloody because it's the last kill in a horror movie.

Tony Todd is probably one of my favorite slashers ever. He has such romantic charisma and he’s such an amazing actor that the devotion seems so real. Also, his voice was probably the selling point in his audition. His voice is so deep and intense that with the reverb on it, his words sound like messages from God or something. Literally, if someone asked me to be their victim and that’s what they sounded like, I’d do anything, literally anything.

As for the message of this movie, Bernard Rose saught to make a movie which commented on the idea of the poor African-American 'boogieman' which rich white women like Helen are scared of. Now I am not black but I have read some articles written by black people within the horror community and the general consensus was the biggest issue was the 'white savior' aspect of the movie and I agree. Helen Lyle is a well-off white woman who comes into the community of Cabrini Green to interrogate people about their beliefs she is seeking to disprove. When she goes too far and gets wrapped up in Candyman, it's her sacrifice which finally saves the community of Cabrini Green. This feels especially gross when you realize that Candyman has preyed on innocent black people in his pursuit of Helen, a white woman. However, this is also generally seen more as a sign of the times than an intentional move and so the original message isn't entirely invalid. I think there is a reading of this movie where Candyman is not real and is instead the scapegoat of a black man which Helen Lyle can blame as she, the white woman, continues to hurt an underserved community but I really don't think that was intentional just something I noticed.

I'm a gore guy, I love practical effects, I love blood, and I love gross things and this movie does a pretty good job of delivering. Candyman's hook is so cool and the stump is absolutely disgusting. I also really like that the hook is supposed to draw the audiences mind to the real urban legend of the hook man, who scrapes his hook along the car.

Finally, one of the coolest parts for me is the bees. All of the bees in this movie were real and it really adds knowing that Tony Todd has all the bees crawling in and around him. I think the bees cemented to me how insane the production on this movie was, especially considering Madsen’s lethal bee allergy, but it ended up all being worth it making a gorgeous, haunting film.