Based on a short story by Clive Barker, Candyman follows graduate student Helen (Virginia Madsen) gathering
stories for her thesis on urban legends. One story that keeps popping up whilst
talking to her fellow Chicagoans is the Candyman (Tony Todd) myth. The origins
of Candyman states a lynch mob was set upon him for sleeping with a landowner’s
white daughter, they cut off his hand and stuck a hook into his stub, before bees
stung him to death after the mob smeared honey on his body. Candyman has most
recently been blamed for the gruesome murder of a landlady in Cabrini-Green, a
dodgy apartment block overrun by gangs and violence. Helen and her friend
Bernadette (Kasi Lemon) head to Cabrini-Green to investigate, as Helen believes
this will help prove that urban myths are a way for people to cope with and
explain away the daily horrors that occur in their lives. Soon Helen begins to discover
that Candyman might be all too real.
As a horror film, Candyman
fits more squarely in the Gothic subgenre although it has its share of
bloody moments. We’ve got the disenchanted wife Helen, whose husband Trevor (Xander
Berkeley) is inattentive, a philander and steals her thesis for his lectures.
Helen goes to a scary haunted housing project, where danger seems to lurk behind
every twist of the graffitied stairwell. Candyman is a tragic yet noble
supernatural monster, who tries to seduce our heroine with promises of pleasure
and immortality. Director Bernard Rose paints some sensual scenes in Candyman: Candyman slowly first
approaches an entranced Helen in a car park, a baroque fur-lined opera cloak
fluttering around him. Candyman spins Helen into a dizzying waltz before
sharing a sweet yet painful kiss between them, as bees swarm over their bodies.
However, Rose is just as happy to paint the screen red in the gorier moments,
as people are gutted from groin to gullet and a dog’s head is left in a pool of
its own blood. All this plays out under Philip Glass’s haunting score full of
choral voices, piano and organ, antithetical to the usual horror score.
Candyman is charged
with social and racial politics. As Helen and Bernadette enter an apartment in
Cabrini-Green, its resident Anne-Marie (Vanessa Williams) murmurs resentfully, ‘Whites
only come to cause us trouble.’ The ineptitude of the police in relation to
Cabrini-Green is referenced numerous times, they didn’t respond to the landlady
Ruthie or Anne-Marie’s 911 calls when Ruthie was being stalked and murdered by
Candyman. A gang-leader is not arrested until he attacks a white woman (Helen).
Cabrini-Green is forsaken by the police, who do nothing to stop the violent gangs
roaming the place. There is a clear line linking the modern-day discrimination
towards the black tenants and the lynching of Candyman, as a continuation of
America’s sordid racism. Candyman
also explores themes of memory and myth-making, as our modern folk-tales constantly
shift to reflect our contemporary fears and to immortalise the victims of
horrendous murders. There is also a slight ambiguity as to whether Candyman is actually real or if Helen is in denial and suffering from hallucinations.
Tony Todd’s performance as the titular character elevates
Candyman into the ranks of the great modern monsters. His deep honeyed voice
does most of the work for him, but Todd radiates regality in his physical
presence and sorrow in his eyes. Virginia Madsen gives a great performance as
Helen, an intelligent but somewhat sceptical student. The audience genuinely
fears for Helen at times and Madsen portrays Helen’s descent into madness
superbly. Kasi Lemon and Xander Berkeley provide strong support as Bernadette
and Trevor respectively; Lemon is warm yet anxious to avoid provoking trouble
and Berkeley almost makes the audience believe he’s not a bit slimy.
Candyman is a striking Gothic horror with a hard political sting to it. The cast give
exceptional performances and Philip Glass’s score is a treat to listen to.
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