Film / Candyman (2021)

Dare to say his name.

"I am the writing on the walls; I am the sweet smell of blood on the street... The buzz that echoes in the alleyways. They will say I shed innocent blood. You are far from innocent, but they will say you were. That's all that matters."

— Candyman

Candyman is a 2021 supernatural slasher film directed by Nia DaCosta (Little Woods) and written by DaCosta, Jordan Peele (who also produces) and Win Rosenfield. It is the direct sequel to the 1992 film of the same name, and the fourth film in the namesake series. The film stars Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, with Teyonah Parris, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, and Colman Domingo in supporting roles. It also features several actors reprising their roles from the original film.

For as long as residents can remember, the housing projects of Chicago’s Cabrini-Green neighborhood were terrorized by a word-of-mouth ghost story about the Candyman, a supernatural killer with a hook for a hand, easily summoned by those daring to repeat his name five times into a mirror.

In the present day, a decade after the last of the Cabrini towers were torn down, visual artist Anthony McCoy (Abdul-Mateen) and his girlfriend, gallery director Brianna Cartwright (Parris), move into a luxury loft condo in Cabrini, now gentrified beyond recognition and inhabited by upwardly mobile millennials.

With Anthony’s painting career on the brink of stalling, a chance encounter with a Cabrini-Green old-timer exposes him to the tragic, horrific nature of the true story behind Candyman. Anxious to maintain his status in the Chicago art world, Anthony begins to explore these macabre details in his studio as fresh grist for paintings, unknowingly opening a door to a complex past that unravels his own sanity and unleashes a terrifying wave of violence that puts him on a collision course with destiny.

The film was released exclusively in theaters on August 27, 2021, following three delays from an original June 2020 date due to concerns regarding the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Previews: Trailer 1, Trailer 2

---

Candyman contains examples of:

• Adaptational Backstory Change: For the wider film trilogy. As established later in the movie, while Daniel Robitaille is still the titular spirit, as seen when Anthony morphs into him, it is more akin to a "queen bee" of a "hive" of angry souls who were victims of racial violence. Burke learns this when he sees "Sherman" kill his sister and attempts to weaponize this.
  • Downplayed for the first film. It doesn't change anything that was said, Purcell only tells Helen the origin of Candyman's legend, and she herself investigates only the newest iteration. The connection with racial violence also explains the discrepancy: as Burke and Anne-Marie show, those are pretty traumatic events that black people are not exactly happy to discuss, particularly to those outside the community who don't have the context or lived experience to understand it, such as Philip Purcell, a condescending white guy who is very likely to disregard the social context around it and even in the original movies considered it just an old tale, not a living experience, despite all the evidence.
• Ambiguous Ending: The film ends just as more police arrive to the scene where Candyman Anthony has killed the racist cops. Given that Brianna is the only one at the scene of the crime, it is very likely that she will be arrested and charged with mass murder, although that might not go very far (the cops were killed in very violent ways, she doesn't have their blood on her, she is handcuffed, and she is clearly too small to take out several armed officers).
• An Arm and a Leg: In the climax, Burke saws off Anthony’s rotting right hand and replaces it with a hook.
• Apartment Complex of Horrors: Although now much less decrepit, the all-white gentrified apartments of Cabrini Green still bear the hallmarks of Candyman's presence, kills people, and it eventually returns to ensnare Anthony thirty years later.
• Art Shift: Flashbacks explaining aspects of the Candyman lore are done via shadow puppetry.
• Ascended Extra: Anthony is the baby whom Helen Lyle rescued from Candyman in the first movie, now a grown adult and our leading man.
• As Long as There Is Evil: A video shared by DeCosta (which later turned out to be the end credits of the film itself) details the subjects of Anthony's art project, all innocent black men killed by prejudiced white people, with three Real Life cases — a candy factory worker with a prosthetic hand, who gave out free samples to the neighborhood children and was later beaten to death by police (Sherman Fields, given that the beating takes place in the laundry room, where Burke encountered Fields for the first time); a man getting in a heated argument with a store owner over the price of seeds only to get axed in the back (Anthony Crawford); a new arrival to the neighborhood, who was lynched by being chained to a truck with a metal hook and dragged down the road (James Byrd Jr.); a young boy in the wrong place at the wrong time, accused, arrested, sentenced and executed for a crime he didn't commit (George Stinney Jr.); and finally, Daniel Robitaille himself. The point is clear: any one or all of them could be the Candyman, and, with America's long, bloody, ongoing history of racialized violence, there are probably thousands more where that came from. This is hammered home in an earlier conversation between Anthony and Burke.
  Burke: Candyman is how we deal with the fact that these things happened! That they're still happening!
• Asshole Victim:
  • The cops who gun down Anthony at the end of the movie tell Brianna that she can either go along with their lies of claiming self-defense or go to jail. She summons Candyman, which brings Anthony back to life to slaughter all of the cops.
  • Clive and his girlfriend demean Anthony and treat him and Brianna with contempt the second he steps out of line.
  • Finley Stephens is quick to tear down Anthony's art at the gallery and only reconsiders its merit once it's connected to the first murders.
  • The high school girls are a mean clique all shown to bully a black student (though one did survive due to getting nervous and leaving the room before the girls finish saying Candyman's name five times).
  • Burke's sister made fun of him and said he couldn't summon Candyman with her because he was a big baby right before she got killed.
• Author Avatar: Being gay and the storyteller of the Candyman legend, Troy is this of the character's creator Clive Barker.
• Badass Boast: Just look at the page quote. The trailer's climax has Candyman deliver his catchphrase over a montage of his kills. Coupled with Tony Todd's thundering voice, it's terrifying. In the movie proper, it plays during Candyman Anthony's murder of the racist cops who shot him, overlaid with Anthony's own voice.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Burke is killed, but not before managing to successfully arrange events to lead to Anthony's death, turning him into a new Candyman.
• Big Bad: The spirit of Candyman spends the whole movie killing people while corrupting Anthony, but the true villain is Burke, who manipulated Anthony into reawakening Candyman and succeeds in making him a new incarnation.
• Big Brother Instinct: Possibly. It's unclear if he's the older or younger sibling, but Troy is very protective of his sister Brianna and becomes disdainful and suspicious of Anthony when it seems that his sister's safety is in danger. He also helps Brianna collect her things from her apartment and invites her to stay with him and his boyfriend.
• Body Horror: Candyman's corruption of Anthony causes a bee sting he gets on his hand early on in his investigation of the story to turn into a scab that slowly turns half his body into a rotting flesh beehive.
• Brown Note: The legend of Candyman seems to be this. Any black man who has heard the legend has the potential to be chosen by Daniel Robitaille to become a new incarnation of Candyman.
• Call-Back: The film's opening titles play over a sequence of shots looking up at an inverted Chicago skyline, the exact inverse of those of the original film, which played over an overhead shot looking down at Chicago freeways.
• Camp Gay: Brianna's brother Troy, which lends itself to him being on Plucky Comic Relief duty.
• Canon Discontinuity: Averted, as nothing in the film explicitly contradicts the prior sequels. In fact, the original Candyman’s name, Daniel Robitaille, wasn’t established until Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh, and it’s kept here. Heck, the reveal of Candyman's true nature helped fix a Continuity Snarl in the aforementioned film.
• Cheated Death, Died Anyway: Anthony was the baby that almost died in the fire at the end of the first movie. However, in this movie, he gets spirited back to Cabrini Green anyway and shot by police officers.
• Creative Closing Credits: The credits are shown alongside a shadow puppet show, an expanded version of this trailer, including the entire Candyman legacy.
• Description Cut: At one point, Brianna asks who would try to summon Candyman on purpose. Cut to a teenage white girl walking into a bathroom to convince her friends to do just that.
• Digital De-Aging: This is used on Tony Todd at the very end, reverting his appearance to how he looked in the first film.
• Dirty Cop: The police who shoot Anthony and threaten Brianna to testify that it was done in self-defense.
• Downer Ending: Anthony is killed in cold blood by police officers and becomes the newest Candyman, fulfilling the plan that Burke set in motion and on a deeper level indicating that Helen Lyle sacrificing her life to save him was for naught. When Brianna summons him to kill the officers, he changes his form to Daniel Robitaille and simply says to her, "Tell everyone," as more police pull up behind her, leaving her fate unknown.
• Driven to Suicide: Troy and Brianna's father was a failed artist who eventually threw himself out of a window.
• Evil Is Not a Toy: Burke tried to use Candyman as a guardian spirit to avenge the persecuted black Americans, but Candyman just kills indiscriminately whenever he is summoned. Burke never sees it, though, as he is killed before it happens. Prior to that, Burke's sister and the mean girls all treat Candyman like a game, and die horribly for it.
• Exact Words:
  • Candyman needs to be called five times in front of a mirror to be summoned. He can be creative with the timing and who is considered calling his name for his convenience, such as when he considers Clive responsible even if only his girlfriend says his name, or when he waits for all the schoolgirls to call his name five times to get them all. But most noticeably in the climax, Brianna calls him four times, with a cop saying it the fifth time, and it counts only against the cops.
  • Burke tells Anthony the story of his meeting with Sherman Fields, and how that was the day he learned fear. It was not seeing Fields that caused it, however, but witnessing the brutal enforcement of racial discrimination when the cops arrived.
• Extreme Mêlée Revenge: Brianna to Burke. With a pen.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Anne-Marie tells Anthony that the community of Cabrini Green swore to never speak of the events of the first film again following Helen's Heroic Sacrifice to save him, which tells viewers that there's something up with Burke, given he's the one who volunteered the information to Anthony without prompting.
  • Anthony's full name is said exactly five times over the course of the movie.
• Genre Savvy:
  • Troy, who clearly states that the last thing Black people need to do is start summoning ghosts.
    • Brianna's first reaction to Anthony's suggestion of summoning Candyman is the same. It runs in the family.
  • Upon opening a basement door and seeing steps leading down into the dark, Brianna's response is to say "Nope," shut the door, and never touch it again.
  • Anne-Marie, of course, on behalf of having been through it all already in the first movie and actually knowing what's going on.
• Girl Posse: Candyman attacks a clique of five unpleasant popular girls in the bathroom, although they're less stereotypically Girly Girl than most examples of the trope (one of them dresses kind of like a Tomboy and another is an androgynous stoner with a shaved head). Haley, the apparent Alpha Bitch leader, is also the group member who seems least invested in mocking their classmate Trina over an Instant Humiliation: Just Add YouTube! video of her getting drunk and vomiting.
• Happy Ending Override: While the first film didn't exactly have a "happy" ending, Helen Lyle's sacrifice at its climax to save baby Anthony proves futile in the long run. Anthony dies and becomes another part of the legend just as Candyman intended; it just took nearly thirty more years to get there.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Helen Lyle, the protagonist of the original film, was blamed for the Candyman's murders and attempting to murder a child after becoming a murderous urban legend herself. Her act of saving the boy is reinterpreted as the crowd saveing him. In a roundabout way, it's actually implied this is a good thing, as it means that Candyman isn't recognised as the killer, and with the residents of Cabrini Green becoming a Secret-Keeper for the truth, it's resulted in Candyman weakening throughout the years as his legend fades and others are recognised for his deeds in his stead.
• Hive Mind: Unintentional puns aside, this film reveals that there isn't just one single Candyman, but rather a whole league or "hive" of them with the original Candyman (Daniel Robitaille) as their leader or "queen bee". While it isn't clear just how much control Daniel has over the rest of the Candymen, he does have the ability to speak through them, as he does with Anthony at the end of the film.
• Hope Spot: After slaughtering the other cops, Candyman unlocks the car door, seemingly allowing the racist officer to escape. Once the officer turns a corner, Candyman guts him.
• Hypocrite: Burke. For all his anger and resentment against whites and gentrification, he's willing to sacrifice a fellow black man for the sake of revenge.
• Iconic Outfit: Along with the hook hand, the most important part of the Candyman persona is a fur-collared coat. Burke makes sure to bring one with him for Anthony in the finale.
• In the Style of: Much like the original film being reminiscent of a Stanley Kubrick horror film such as The Shining, this sequel can be considered reminiscent of the sequel to The Shining, Doctor Sleep, that was released about half a year before this film was meant to open. The two films especially share the premise of following a child side-character from the original film as an adult who is still connected to the threatening supernatural forces.
• Karmic Death: The cops who kill a defenseless Anthony are his first victims upon being transformed into Candyman.
• Ironic Nursery Tune: During the movie's opening logos, Sammy Davis Jr.'s upbeat song "The Candy Man" is playing in the background. The song even begins sounding more unhinged and creepy once the movie begins proper.
• Legacy Character: A rather unique variant. Instead of just being a single spirit, the Candyman is actually a "hive" of spirits who were all victims of racial violence. Daniel Robitaille was the original Candyman, acting as a "Queen Bee" of sorts, while Sherman Fields was the most recent addition. By the end of the film, Burke succeeds in making Anthony McCoy join their ranks.
• Logo Joke: All the logos are presented as mirror reflections, set to Sammy Davis Jr.'s "The Candy Man" with the buzzing of bees audible in the background.
• Mirror Scare: Candyman's reflection shows up in place of Anthony several times over the course of the movie as he's further corrupted by the spirit, and while Candyman can still affect objects and people in the real world, he can now only be seen in reflections. It's implied this is a result of the original Candyman spirit being weakened by a number of factors — between the residents of Cabrini Green becoming a Secret-Keeper for the truth of the events surrounding the murders Helen Lyle was blamed for, Helen herself being publicly recognised as the killer instead of a supernatural entity which further affected Candyman's legend, and the events in the previous two films also resulting in the Soul Jars of the original Candyman being destroyed and other people being recognised as the killers instead of himself, it's all but stated that Candyman was on the verge of Cessation of Existence until Burke tricked Anthony into spreading his legend again. This also factors into why Candyman doesn't speak throughout his killings, apart from the climax, when he's newly-empowered and possessing Anthony's physical flesh — he's too weak to waste the energy on doing more than necessary to spread his legend once more.
• Miscarriage of Justice: Burke explains how when he was a boy, there was a man named Sherman Fields who gave candy out to kids. Unfortunately, it was discovered that there was candy with razors in the neighborhood. As a result, Sherman ended up being suspected, tortured and killed, only to be proven innocent when the razor-bladed candy continued to surface. His racial death resulted in him becoming a Candyman.
• Moody Trailer Cover Song:
  • The trailer remixes "Say My Name" with "Music Box" and "It Was Always You, Helen" from the original film.
  • This trailer uses a choir-only version of "It Was Always You, Helen".
• Mr. Exposition: William Burke, who fills in Anthony about the history of Candyman. His reasons for doing so are not benevolent...
• No Kill like Overkill: Brianna stabbing Burke to death over a dozen times. Cue Anthony: "I think he's dead."
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Burke wishes to bring an end to the racial violence in his community by turning Candyman from a symbol of Black pain and suffering into an instrument of vengeance against racism. Doing so, however, involves manipulating Anthony, a fellow black man, into becoming the new Candyman by causing him to get killed by the police.
• Older and Wiser: Anne-Marie, now a true believer in the Candyman lore, appears to be more level-headed than in the original film where she went apoplectically Mama Bear on Helen Lyle for Anthony's kidnapping that she initially Wrongly Accused her for it when it was really Candyman's doing.
• Police Brutality: Responding to Burke's 911 call, a cop bursts into the apartment and immediately shoots Anthony — who is currently lying prone in Brianna's lap, delirious with pain.
• Preserve Your Gays: Troy and Grady are the only two prominent characters lucky enough to never have to encounter Candyman. This is likely to show respect to horror maestro Clive Barker, who is gay and the writer behind the short story where the character Candyman originated from. From a Watsonian standpoint, it's also justified since Troy and Brianna are the two people Genre Savvy enough to just avoid summoning Candyman in the first place, and unlike Brianna, Troy doesn't have a personal connection to drag him in anyway.
• Pyrrhic Victory:
  • Brianna is able to kill Burke, but unfortunately, a group of racist police officers then come in and shoot Anthony.
  • And again with a dash of Evil Is Not a Toy. Brianna was able to summon Candyman Anthony to massacre the police officers at the scene. The original Candyman quickly takes over Anthony and threatens Brianna to tell the others of his myth as he leaves Brianna to take the blame of mass murdering a bunch of cops, which is the sort of scenario Burke wanted to stop.
• Remember the New Guy?: Since Sherman Fields lived in the same place where the first movie took place and became one of the Candymen after being killed by the police in the ’70s, one must wonder why there is no sign or mention of him in the first movie, which takes place approximately 20 years after his death.
  • A possible explanation is that we see Helen never actually going too deep. We see her learning from Purcell of the origin of Candyman and then gathering information on the latest incidents, but never checking in between. Also, noticeably, the one person who does give her information in the first movie is a boy that was likely too young to know about Fields.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: One of the prep school girls bails on her friends before they all finish saying Candyman’s name five times, and thus she is spared the same grisly fate as her friends. Another one tries to do the same in the very beginning, but she's convinced to stay.
• Senseless Sacrifice: As it turns out, Helen's Heroic Sacrifice to save Anthony at the end of the original film ultimately becomes this when Anthony is killed by the police and becomes another Candyman.
• Sequel Escalation: Although it’s shorter than the previous installment, this film has a faster pace and more action, Candyman’s backstory and powers are expanded upon, and most importantly, it is revealed that there is more than one Candyman.
• Shout-Out:
  • The shadow puppets in the film used to convey the horrors of the racial violence bear a strong similarity to work of fine artist Kara Walker and her silhouette cut-outs depicting racism and violence.
  • In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment at the laundromat, Burke is seen reading Weave World by Clive Barker, who is the original writer of the short story that was the basis for the original film.
  • One of Candyman's victims — Jerrica, the girlfriend of Clive — is wearing a Joy Division shirt (featuring the Unknown Pleasures design) when she gets killed, and even quotes the title of the band's song "Love Will Tear Us Apart" beforehand.
  • While trying to escape the Candyman, Clive briefly apes Jeff Goldblum:
    Clive: Must go faster. Must go faster!
• Slasher Smile: Double Subverted with Sherman Fields. When alive, he would approach kids to give them candy with a very unnerving smile on his face all while humming ominously which gave off major child predator vibes but as it turns out, he was genuinely kind and harmless man. But after being beaten to death and returning as a Candyman ghost however, the trope becomes played straight when he starts murdering those that dare to say "Candyman" in the mirror five times.
• Symbolic Glass House: There are a lot of glass houses and significant glass rooms Played for Horror due to the significance of the mirror to Candyman's legacy, such as the art gallery where Candyman is first unleashed, and the art critic's apartment where Candyman kills her.
• Tempting Fate: The movie's tagline dares the viewer to say Candyman's name. One part of its marketing was a Snapchat filter that gave those willing to do so a scare.
• Token Enemy Minority: Seeing how nearly every white person in the film is depicted as an elitist Know-Nothing Know-It-All at best and a racist at worst, Troy's partner Grady definitely qualifies.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Anne-Marie is less the mis-blaming Mama Bear Hysterical Woman she was in the original film, likely having to do with Helen's Heroic Sacrifice in saving Anthony at the end of said film.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • In the opening scene, young William reacts as almost anyone would to a wanted man coming out of a hole in the wall, and offering you candy — he screams. This scream and what follows set the rest of the film in motion.
  • Troy tells Anthony and Brianna the story of Helen Lyle, which piques Anthony's interest and starts him on his Candyman investigation.
• The Unreveal: It is never mentioned who was really responsible for the razor-filled candy that Sherman was unfairly put to death over, or if they were ever brought to justice.
• Vader Breath: Whenever Sherman Field's Candyman appears, he doesn't speak a word and the only clue that indicates he's nearby is his low, raspy breathing.
• Walking Spoiler: It's hard to discuss Burke in any detail without revealing that he is the film's true antagonist.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Seeing as how Helen essentially replaced Candyman in the original by ascending into the realm of folklore after her death, it's strange that the film doesn't seem to acknowledge the significance of her transformation. It's arguably a Justified Trope in that Burke wants to resurrect the legend of Candyman and the vengeful spirit alongside it. Helen being blamed for his murders from the original film, rather than a supernatural killer, is implied to have weakened him because people don't believe he's responsible for the deaths, and his legend has become obscured by the public perception of Helen. Attributing more deaths to her would run counter to Burke's intentions, not to mention the circumstances of Helen's death, and her being a white woman, wouldn't have made her quite the guardian spirit against Racial violence of African Americans Burke was looking for.
• Writer's Block: In a variation, Anthony is a very skilled painter who is stuck in a creative rut. Even after getting inspired by the story of Sherman Fields, his first painting is described by Brianna as shockingly literal.

---

"Tell... everyone."

---