Candyman 3

The trailer for the new film, Candyman 4

written by Jordan Peele has horror fans excited. 5

The film is being described as a spiritual sequel 6

to 1992's Candyman. 7

But what's the big deal? 8

Candyman is one of the scariest horror movies, 9

like in the top 10 scary movies 10

for a lot of horror fans, including me. 11

Just as an example, even though I am a very grown woman, 12

I will not say Candyman into a mirror five times. 13

Tananarive Due is an author and producer 14

who teaches at UCLA. 15

She says the original Candyman 16

Left a huge imprint on those of us who've seen it. 17

It is a very well acted film. 18

Tony Todd especially brings Candyman 19

to almost a level of sort of a Shakespearian 20

tragic antihero. 21

The cinematography is fantastic, 22

the story is fantastic 23

and it is a really, really scary urban legend, 24

this idea that you can invite evil into your house 25

and invite violence onto yourself 26

by just saying a name five times in a mirror. 27

Candyman. 28

Candyman. 29

Candyman. 30

Some people might know the urban legend Bloody Mary 31

which is very similar if you say that name several times. 32

But Candyman was originally from a short story 33

called The Forbidden by Clive Barker 34

and it was a very different iteration of Candyman. 35

It was set in the U.K. 36

Candyman was white. 37

He had never been subject to racism 38

or the effects of slavery like Candyman as we know it. 39

So that story was centered mostly around the idea 40

of the urban legend 41

and when Bernard Rose, the director and screenwriter, 42

decided to adapt this Clive Barker story, 43

he moved it to the U.S. 44

and instead of looking at a class divide 45

which was the original short story, 46

it became about race. 47

Due says the 1992 version has its issues. 48

It's walking a very delicate line racially. 49

It wants to have an impact and make a message 50

about unfair housing 51

and look at this terrible housing project, Cabrini-Green. 52

It brings up all these conversations 53

but it also brings up some imagery 54

that is kind of old school and troubling 55

like the black man chasing after 56

the beautiful white woman 57

which is an old image that hearkens 58

back to the beginning of cinema 59

with D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation in 1915. 60

Even at the time, there were obviously some filmmakers 61

and viewers who thought that the emphasis on how 62

dirty Cabrini-Green is and how scary the black men are 63

in the whole film, 64

not just Candyman but basically almost all of the back men 65

except for maybe there's a police officer. 66

But it's not a good look 67

and there are a lot of ways you can tell 68

that Candyman was sort of created for a white audience, 69

in a way that I think will be different 70

in the 2020 spiritual sequel, as it's called. 71

The urban legend is if you say his name five times 72

while looking in the mirror, 73

he appears in the reflection and it kills you. 74

I think that today's political times 75

also demand a new look at Candyman as a film not primarily, 76

it would seem, shot for a white audience 77

but a film that's really shot for everyone, 78

including black audiences. 79

Is Candyman real? 80

Well, I'm not gonna be the one to say his name 81

five times in the mirror to find out. 82

Why don't you find out if Candyman is real? 83

Technically, Candyman probably isn't real 84

but my attitude is, why take a chance? 85

This is insideedition.com.