the story of candyman is still perennial and that's part of the reason why it's exciting to
tell it at any time period um from the origin of the story itself within in the context of
of the first film you know in the 1890s uh to now what we're talking about i think is the cycles of
violence and how history repeats itself and how we collectively grieve and collectively
process trauma which is through stories so i think it's it's always a time to tell a story
like handyman which is you know kind of the big tragedy of of the tale in the first place the
original candy man um directed written directed by bernard rose based on a story by clyde barker
was is one of my favorites it's a very influential movie for me um mainly because
i believe it came out in 1992 so i would have been like 13 and this was i was a horror fan and we
didn't have a black freddy we didn't have a black jason we loved we identified with freddie and
jason but when candyman came along it felt very um it felt very daring um and it felt very cathartic
and it was terrifying so this was one of the movies that told me
we can um that black people can be in horror um even though there there are uh you know many
examples of black people in horror movies this was this was one for me that felt particularly
badass candyman was just like a real sort of urban legend when i was growing up it wasn't
necessarily just attached to the movie it felt very present you know i went to school right
next to the projects i lived across the street from the projects and so um for us candyman was
just hanging out over you know across the street from us um and so i think the first time i saw it
was an elementary school but this is after i'd already kind of lived with the idea of
there being some demon ghost man killing people in the project so um uh i i think my first time
seeing the movie was like terrifying as it is for most people but i'd already kind of had this lore
in my head so it was kind of like connecting the dots i was like oh that's candy man i see i get it
the original film helen is a bit bit of the you know played expertly by virginia madsen by the way
helen lyle is a bit of a fish out of water to say the least in the cabrini green area and a lot
a lot is focused on her fear and and and therefore our the audience's fear of this
space of this black space um well that's that that that cabrini green has been torn down and is
fairly gentrified now and the story that felt resonated to me to me uh now is the the story of
my fear of the white space and and and to be able to explore the quote-unquote mirror image
or the flip of the first one um to me was a point that made the project worthy in itself to see the
the full uh realization of that conversation that this movie is i basically looked to history and
there are stories that i already knew stories that i found as i was doing research that i
wanted to take inspiration from i didn't want to like take these people's lives and say these are
they're part of the candyman lore but just to be inspired by things that had actually happened and
that related to our to our story and really it was because i wanted to show how prevalent common um
these horrific events are and and how they're just you know this is a straight line from
danny roberta to anthony and all the people in between so for me it was really necessary to
to take inspiration from real life but also not um co-opt a story and like put it into our narrative
so i think that was also a balance to strike with candyman with with talking about unwilling martyrs
i wanted to make sure that in in the rush to sort of process our what happened and to and
to to choose a side and to create um sense of something horrifying that we don't forget the
the life of the person who who um who was harmed who was killed um because a martyr is a powerful
symbol a monster's a powerful symbol but at the end of the day like if if the name isn't
remembered then then what then what are we really talking about um because the name the person the
life that was lost that's the most important thing and so you know in kennedy man it's say his name
say his name save his name people say candyman but they don't say they don't say the name of
dana robitaille or anthony mccoy and so that was commentary on that um as well and and also
on like what what's happening in the movement now which is so powerful which is like say the name
of the person say brianna taylor say jacob blake you know um which i think is really powerful and
really important and um and what i wanted to to talk more about in in relation to candyman
um which is that he's not a monster he's not a martyr he's he's danny robitaille a painter who
lost his life or he's anthony mccoy um a painter and awkward dude who who lost his life you know
i wanted to talk about humanity how do you maintain tension when you know as soon as
you say a fifth candyman the people who said it are gonna die like how do you prolong that
how do you make it exciting to watch every time it happens um also how do you like make someone
saying candyman five times like interesting every time it happens in the movie um so it was really
fun to kind of figure out different ways to to um to to do them and also different different
scenarios and different people would happen to and different ways that they say candyman five
times and um and from like a from a practical like workflow point of view like we did a lot of previz
um in particular because mirrors were so important obviously to the movie and so trying to figure out
like how to shoot the reflection of a reflection where you know in space like handyman would be
and all that stuff was really complicated so previz was really um really really helpful
um and then on the day it was really about like putting all the parts together and then like the
actors like having fun with their gruesome deaths i think what nia has really done is she's explored
race on all these all these all the levels from the uncomfortable to the downright devastating and
she's you know she's kept a love story in there at the center a tragic love story at the center
like the original as well well i hope audiences get you know wrapped up in the story i hope they
can can um engage with and identify with the main characters and to feel what they're feeling
um i want them to be scared i want them to be sad and i i want them to understand
you know something more um
than they knew they knew before or they understood before walking into the film
that might be too much to ask but i just hope people leave it
changed but at the very least thinking thinking more