Candyman
The trailer for the new film, Candyman
written by Jordan Peele has horror fans excited.
The film is being described as a spiritual sequel
to 1992's Candyman.
But what's the big deal?
Candyman is one of the scariest horror movies,
like in the top 10 scary movies
for a lot of horror fans, including me.
Just as an example, even though I am a very grown woman,
I will not say Candyman into a mirror five times.
Tananarive Due is an author and producer
who teaches at UCLA.
She says the original Candyman
Left a huge imprint on those of us who've seen it.
It is a very well acted film.
Tony Todd especially brings Candyman
to almost a level of sort of a Shakespearian
tragic antihero.
The cinematography is fantastic,
the story is fantastic
and it is a really, really scary urban legend,
this idea that you can invite evil into your house
and invite violence onto yourself
by just saying a name five times in a mirror.
Candyman.
Some people might know the urban legend Bloody Mary
which is very similar if you say that name several times.
But Candyman was originally from a short story
called The Forbidden by Clive Barker
and it was a very different iteration of Candyman.
It was set in the U.K.
Candyman was white.
He had never been subject to racism
or the effects of slavery like Candyman as we know it.
So that story was centered mostly around the idea
of the urban legend
and when Bernard Rose, the director and screenwriter,
decided to adapt this Clive Barker story,
he moved it to the U.S.
and instead of looking at a class divide
which was the original short story,
it became about race.
Due says the 1992 version has its issues.
It's walking a very delicate line racially.
It wants to have an impact and make a message
about unfair housing
and look at this terrible housing project, Cabrini-Green.
It brings up all these conversations
but it also brings up some imagery
that is kind of old school and troubling
like the black man chasing after
the beautiful white woman
which is an old image that hearkens
back to the beginning of cinema
with D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation in 1915.
Even at the time, there were obviously some filmmakers
and viewers who thought that the emphasis on how
dirty Cabrini-Green is and how scary the black men are
in the whole film,
not just Candyman but basically almost all of the back men
except for maybe there's a police officer.
But it's not a good look
and there are a lot of ways you can tell
that Candyman was sort of created for a white audience,
in a way that I think will be different
in the 2020 spiritual sequel, as it's called.
The urban legend is if you say his name five times
while looking in the mirror,
he appears in the reflection and it kills you.
I think that today's political times
also demand a new look at Candyman as a film not primarily,
it would seem, shot for a white audience
but a film that's really shot for everyone,
including black audiences.
Is Candyman real?
Well, I'm not gonna be the one to say his name
five times in the mirror to find out.
Why don't you find out if Candyman is real?
Technically, Candyman probably isn't real
but my attitude is, why take a chance?
This is insideedition.com.