Headscratchers / Candyman

Why the Hook Hand?

• Why would they give him a hook for a hand if they intended to kill him anyways?
  • Because they were just torturing him for the hell of it.
  • They probably didn't give him one. The urban legend itself did. It's a story of a one-handed killer. Of course he must have a hook in the other hand.
  • The flashback leads us more to believe it was an in-the-moment torture. To chop off a hand and then stick a metal object up into the flesh would have been highly painful. It's just no one at the time wondered "what if he comes back as a homicidal ghost with that hook".
  • They didn't, since the lynching never actually happened. Cabrini Green didn't even exist when it was supposed to have taken place. Candyman is an urban legend brought to life through belief, his backstory doesn't have to make sense because it never took place.
    • Cabrini Green not existing isn't actually a Series Continuity Error as of 2021, because Candyman is either a Legacy Character, or takes the identities of other black men unjustly killed; Daniel lived and died in New Orleans, but there was another "Candyman" killed in Cabrini Green in the 70s. That said, the new film implies the figure we see and his story is an amalgam of all versions of the legend; his real name and death in the 20s comes from Daniel, the name, hook-hand and tie to Cabrini Green come from the resident killed by police; it's even possible Helen is part of him now, as the new film claims Daniel was burned, not stung to death.

Candyman setting up someone else for his crimes

• Why would the Candyman stage his mutilations in such a way that it seems that someone else did it? I mean his ability to exist hinges on people believing he is real, so why doesn't he just make a grand demonstration? Kill someone when they are in the open? I mean it's clear he is patient and doesn't need to kill the instant he is summoned.
  • Because if his existence is confirmed, people might become a lot less cavalier about summoning him.
    • But he never indicates he cares if he's summoned, only that people believe in him. But he and Helen are two cases of magic in this universe, who says there aren't more? Maybe he's afraid of the SCP Foundation/Ghostbusters/John Constantine getting on his trail, and sending him to hell for good.
  • He exists in a rumor, and it's "a blessed existence", also specifically talking about belief and a congregation. Everything he does is to solidify himself as a myth, something to be believed in despite the doubts. If he just showed up in daylight it wouldn't be a myth anymore, just a fact, with no actual faith to support him. And it wouldn't have the same style or mystique.
    • YMMV on this, after all the power of belief can use a little solid evidence to keep it going.

Candyman on fire

• How could Candyman burn like that? He's already some kind of demonic spirit.
  • He has a physical body though, at least at times, so he can be hurt. Plus, his first body was killed in a bonfire, and it's a common trope that hitting the ghost with whatever hit it earlier does extra damage.
  • Candyman is a metaphorical being fueled by belief whose power was (by his own admission) waning after Helen "demistified" him with her arrest of the Candyman criminal. He observes that he's going to burn little Anthony and Helen as an act to restore "his congregation's faith", "a new miracle" of sorts (presumably in his gameplan the residents eventually find Helen's and Anthony's charred bodies and realize the Candyman tricked them, kickstarting his legend anew). Helen walking out of the fire with Anthony meant she basically hijacked the "new miracle" and "his congregation" for herself (so instead of talking about how Candyman tricked them, they'll be talking about how a fiery woman saved a baby), killing the belief the Candyman needed (and thus also killing Candyman himself) for good. The fire burning him is just a metaphysical representation of the disbelief in Candyman doing him in.

Why summon Candyman and earn his attention?

• Why would you summon Candyman in the first place? It's a lose/lose situration. If he's fake, than you just sorta wasted your time. If he's real, than he kills you.
  • For the exact reason the characters we see in the movie do: to prove they're brave/he does not exist.
  • Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Ma-

A child summoning a child killer

• So it's obvious that the kid from Jake's story was attacked by the real Candyman and not the gang leader posing as him, since there wasn't anyway he could've escaped from the restroom. My question is why did this kid summon Candyman when he just there to use the restroom? And why did Candyman merely castrate him instead of killing him? The movie shows that he's not above killing children.
  • It's a reference to a similar scene in the short story (except in that version it's a mentally disabled adult instead of a kid), and it's left ambiguous if the attack happened at all, or if it's just part of the Candyman mythos.

Candyman dealing with impostors

• Why does Candyman not deal with the gang leader posing as him?
  • A gangster using his name is quite a powerful dynamo for the belief in him, since it's a physical reminder of his power. Candyman actually says later on that when he was arrested the belief in him started to wane.

Candyman's villainy

• Why would Candyman come back as a monster who sheds "innocent blood" and not as some kind of vengeance demon for victims of racism, and thereby become a mythological folk hero? Wouldn't people be more likely to want to believe in him in that case?
  • We have no indication that works in this universe. The metaphysical rules that made Candyman exist are always vague and not set in stone in all the movies, pretty much. Given we never see any kind of folk hero figure like you're describing, it's possible that coming back as a indiscriminately murderous entity is the only way people come back (even in the end of the first movie, Helen murders her philandering husband incidentally: only because he summoned her). It's also quite likely that Candyman doesn't have a choice and he only acts the way people believe he acts (i.e society fabricated the idea of him being a vicious murderer and he's compelled to be this way by the power of belief).
  • The 2021 film runs with this angle of a folk legend based: a vengeance-based spirit on persecuted black people. It doesn't make him less deadly or more sympathetic though.
  • That's the opinion of one character in the 2021 film, the other darker implication is that Candyman is just the malevolent entity that steals the faces of persecuted black people to feed off the belief of the community.

Arc Words catchphrase

• What does the well known saying "Sweets to the sweet" mean in the context of Barker's story and this film franchise? Why does the central villain say it (I think he does anyway) and have it graffitied in the places he haunts?
  • In the short story it is because he smells sweet like candy. (Though it may be the bees inside of him that make him smell like honey. Book Helen thinks his smell is most similar to candy floss/cotton candy). Some have taken this to mean offering him candy, though he seems more interested in belief than actual sweets.