CANDYMAN (2021) Review
“You know how it goes. They love what we make, but not us.”
CANDYMAN is directed by Nia DaCosta and written by DaCosta, Win Rosenfeld, and some guy named Jordan Peele. It stars Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Watchmen, Aquaman) as Anthony McCoy, Teyonah Parris (If Beale Street Could Talk, Chi-Raq) as Brianna Cartwright, Colman Domingo (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Fear The Walking Dead) as William Burke, returning cast member Vanessa Williams (Chicago Hope, Candyman 1992) as Anne-Marie McCoy, Michael Hargrove (Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D.) as Sherman Fields. Is Tony Todd in the film? Yes. The cast also includes Brian King (The Chi) as Clive Privler and Miriam Moss (Chicago P.D.) as Jerrica Cooper.
Here’s the trailer:
CANDYMAN is the story of a painter and visual artist named Anthony McCoy who together with his art gallery director partner Brianna Cartwright live in the luxury apartments that were built over the notorious public housing project Cabrini Green in Chicago. While seeking new inspiration for a gallery showing that isn’t assured, McCoy happens on a former resident of Cabrini Green who introduces him to the tragic urban myth of Candyman. Suddenly, McCoy is inspired like never before, but disturbing things start happening to him and all those he loves. Is Candyman just a story or is it something much more dangerous?
CANDYMAN is an incredibly stylish film that has elegant violence, some really fantastic gore and murder set pieces, and genuinely unsettling and frightening moments of terror. It inverts and subverts the original film by Bernard Rose and has fun with the ideas of urban legends or, as the professor says in the original Candyman says, modern urban folklore, the art world and critics, the police, gentrification, and what it is like to be Black in the United States while commenting on the injustices at the same time.
The film is very aware of the history of the Candyman film series and the history of horror itself. I think that DaCosta has done a great job of working with the tropes and the history of the original film. She’s done right by the rules of the franchise and even managed to work in homages to that which has come before her film. There’s more that one layer to the myths involved with Candyman. I’m beginning to believe, more and more, that horror films and stories are really modern folklore in a way that other films aren’t. It’s come up on social media that many people don’t know that the original story on which the films are based was written by Clive Barker from his Books of Blood called The Forbidden, which was about the British version of public housing that are called Council Estates. It even has a main character named Helen. Bernard Rose, the director of the first Candyman film, decided to change the setting to talk about different things. Some people have come to believe that the story of Candyman is real and completely American, neither of which is true. Just like the myth of razor blades or other harmful items that are supposedly maliciously put into candy, it’s just a story.
It’s not real. But Candyman has always been about how belief trumps literal truth. How certain forces use human terror and belief to will what they want into existence.
Horror films in general and horror films like CANDYMAN, create a fiction - a fantasy construct, to talk about real issues that people want to ignore. CANDYMAN by Nia DaCosta is not the same film as Bernard Rose’s Candyman and it shouldn’t be. CANDYMAN set in a different time and has a different focus, namely, how Black people are treated and viewed as people in our times. It’s not about a Cabrini Green of the 1990’s. CANDYMAN’s about the gentrified area that’s built over the Cabrini Green of the past and what it’s like to be people of color in that environment when the racism has just gone underground.
The film does have at least a couple of examples of homage that I want to discuss and one of the most stylish ones are the scenes set in the art gallery where Brianna Cartwright has put together a show that features Anthony McCloud’s art. The owner of the gallery is the distasteful character Clive Privler and I’ve even heard that some critics think this is an insult to Clive Barker. I see it more as a homage especially since it’s bookended with another homage where William Burke is seen reading a copy of Barker’s book Weave World. For one thing, Clive Privler is straight and an art dealer. For this theory to hold water, DaCosta and the other screenwriters would have had to make his character gay and they didn’t. They also have him utter a catchphrase from a mainstream actor who does have a bad reputation. I don’t really think that was the intention of the filmmakers of CANDYMAN.
DaCosta really goes in on the style of the film. The title sequence of the film is stunning and is a strong thematic statement about the filmmaker’s intentions. There have been wave of films where that use upside down shots, but the entire opening sequence is first a mirror image and then upside down. I don’t think that DaCosta could have been clearer about her intentions to put her own stamp on the material and make it her own. It also speaks thematically to the rules of how Candyman functions as a revenant. Mirrors are his. Reflections are his. I am reminded of the Blue Oyster Cult song, Mirrors, which has this lyric:
A mirror, is a negative space with a frame,
And a place for your face
It reveals, what the rest of us see
It conceals, what you’d like it to be
The protagonist of CANDYMAN is an artist and his partner is an art gallery director. The idea of negative space in art and as a place that is inhabited by Candyman, as a gateway to wherever he wants to go, and as part of art in general is a low key chiller. There’s really no way to hide from reflections and the idea that Candyman, the myth, is part of the truth that’s looking us right in the face everyday that we choose to ignore is quite complex. That’s why making the protagonist part of the art world is a really fantastic idea. Art and its role in perception which rules societal truth and how that affects the self and the whole of society. How difficult it is to escape the perception of who you are, as a person of color, as a man or woman, as an artist that may only have a passing resemblance to who you really are. How perception becomes myth and myth becomes truth. The shadow puppetry is an additional and very welcome note. It’s art and much of what this film is about how we use art to cope with the bad things in life and protect ourselves from those things too.
One of the first things that came to my mind while watching the art gallery sequence was the art gallery scene from Dario Argento’s The Bird With The Crystal Plumage. It’s not exactly like the other building which was a bit of a marvel of Italian architecture, but the all glass facing made my mind jump to that film at once. It was then that I realized that this particular sequence in the film was very neo-Giallo. It’s a homage to the hyper-violent Italian horror films, mostly from the late 1960’s to 1970's. It’s the lighting and how the actors are photographed and even how some of the actor’s behave. Strongly colored gels with jewel tone colors, which is actually very Mario Bava, Dario Argento “borrowed” the idea from him, the types of faces that the supporting actors have, and the way that their faces are shot. I’m talking about films like Blood And Black Lace (Mario Bava), Deep Red, Tenebrae, and The Stendahl Syndrome along with the aforementioned Bird With The Crystal Plumage. Along with the neo-Giallo setup, there’s a big change in how the victims are killed in this series and it’s spectacular as horror and a connection to classic Giallo. There is a color coding to the victims and protagonists in the film which is continuation of the clothing choices in Candyman 1992. I have become more and more convinced that every area of the crew adds to the story telling of a film, yes, even wardrobe.
There’s also a component of body horror to the film, which I won’t talk about at length, because SPOILERS, but for me, it’s one of the scariest things about the film. It’s a horror that could have been tailored specifically to me and it gives me a chill just thinking about it.
The idea of human belief ruling existence is all over the film and is a continuation from the original story and the first film. I think that the first time that I became familiar with the concept of belief in an idea making something real was from Harlan Ellison’s book of stories Paingod And Other Delusions. The book talks about how when belief in a deity wanes, the deity dies. He talked about that in an essay about how we were creating new gods to be ruled by everyday. It also has a story, “Repent Harlequin, Said The Tiktokman!”, where it shows that the sacrifice of a rebel, particularly as a martyr, makes them, their story, and their ideas immortal. Bear this in mind while you watch CANDYMAN. Candyman as an eternal, as a monster, as an avenger, and as a demi-god of urban myth, but that the need to continue to exist, to survive, will trump all else. That Candyman kills racists and evil doers, but he also will kill the innocent when necessary to perpetuate his own myth, because without belief, he dies.
The performances in the film are all very good. The actors do a great job at portraying regular everyday people who are not always nice, but who you can relate to. The film and the director use the acting performances to make valid points and mock behavior, especially in the world of art — and not just fine art. I’m certain that this is a well deserved criticism also aimed at people in the entertainment industry, specifically critics and publications, but not limited to that. It’s aimed at the gatekeepers who say who can be perceived as a great artist and who gets to make a living. Most importantly, it points some fingers at what attracts attention to artist’s work, publicity, fame, and scandal. Death. Those things that have nothing to do with the art or its quality, but will almost certainly make you a success. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is wonderfully likeable and strong as a nice guy who is an artist who has a bubbling resentment about how he is treated as an artist and is bewildered by what starts to happen. Teyonah Parris is caring, beautiful, and pragmatic while being as ambitious as her partner. Colman Domingo is always a welcome presence in any endeavor due to his skill as an actor and his blinding charisma. He’s interesting and he’s a bit like a human tractor beam. The film lets him cut loose a bit and I am definitely happy about that. As the whole, the ensemble is without flaw. Even the actresses playing the high school girls and the woman who plays the critic are properly catty and mean. As actors, they don’t care about being liked and that’s great work. It’s great to see Vanessa Williams and Tony Todd in the film, even if its only briefly. Vanessa Williams, in particular, is memorable in a way that surpasses her previous performance, which was already very good. Tony Todd is that presence that you can feel through the screen. Brian King and Miriam Moss are hilarious as the art scene couple with a very Clive Barker-eque banter. Nathan Stewart Jarrett and Kyle Kaminsky are adorable as their opposite, the much nicer and more well balanced gay couple. Claire Simon (Man of Steel casting department), the casting director, has done fantastic work in casting this film and in bringing in local talent to give them a showcase.
John Gulesarian (The Happiest Season, About Time) is the cinematographer for the film and I just have to state that the photography and lighting is achingly gorgeous. I mentioned earlier that I had noticed the upside down trend coming in films in the last year, but CANDYMAN and Gulesarian fully committed to it. From the neon yellow sign lit scene to the overhead shot of the train glowing with green, there’s a definite thread of neo-Giallo in his work in the film, but there’s also a very velvety aura to the dark scenes that stays away from the usual way that darkness is filmed in horror films outdoors. You see what’s there very clearly and one murder set piece that is really cool is actually filmed at a distance. It’s more intriguing because of what you can’t see and you wonder exactly who is watching. There’s another shot that is the back of someone’s head walking down a hallway that is remarkable. How you make something that ordinary tense and compelling and the audacity of of it is impressive.
The score is by Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe (Sicaro, Arrival, Mother!) and it ranges from pulsing electronica, which I think is a nod to the Argento scores of Goblin, to what sounds like more traditional folk music and quieter, more ruminative music that is different from most musical scores. The score changes for the needs of the scene and expresses what the characters in the scene are feeling more than just simply being atmospheric. It’s really interesting work.
The costume design is by Lizzie Cook (The Chi) and as I mentioned earlier is fully a part of designating who characters are. She’s done really good work, even finding a way to keep the theme of who the victims are, even the people who would be hardest to put in that specific color.
I’m trying to avoid spoilers, but I do want to note that there’s a particular sequence, set in an elevator, that really looks like it will play even better in a theatre. Since DaCosta is making use of her knowledge of film and horror history, it’s seems highly influenced by another great and subtle horror film’s final moments. I totally loved it. Watching it on my TV made my eyes grow large and creeped me out. I can only imagine how much better it would play in theatre darkness. If you go, wear a mask the whole time.
Nia DaCosta has made an excellent and self assured second feature film and tackled a beloved franchise film very successfully. She’s taken ideas from the past of horror and reworked them to serve the narrative of her film. It’s not just the style, which is rich and gorgeous, DaCosta has worked in the ideas marvelously. CANDYMAN is style and substance. Most of all, I find it fantastic that none of the characters are caricatures or stereotypes. They’re people first. Too often, even in horror movies that I like, letting the characters be whole and flawed is not the priority. She’s been very bold with certain strokes of the paintbrush, especially with the leads. Instead of demanding that people be simply good or bad, she allows them to be a mixture of the two, particularly as a character is progressing in their arc. Candyman is not the good guy. He’s a revenant and is governed by an entirely different set of rules, which, essentially, as a demi-god of urban myth, he can make up or change as he sees fit. Candyman lies. It’s like all of the myths of gods and heroes throughout history, if you really read about what they do, you would not think of them only as heroes. Our heroes and gods are every bit as flawed as we are.
Remember, there are people believe this story is real and that should tell you everything about how the central theme of this film is correct. I know that I am never going to say CANDYMAN five time in a mirror and I’m an atheist who does not believe in ghosts. But I’ll never take that chance.
CANDYMAN is a breathtaking beauty of a horror film. Clever, brutal and entrancing, it spreads its dark wings over you as you watch the colors in front of you. As you gaze at the beauty of the art, you feel the darkness first and then finally notice that your moment to escape is gone and it is far too late to run.
