While it’s no secret that I’m a big time horror aficionado, I’ve left some mystery surrounding the overly complicated storage method for the massive collection of spooky flicks. Since I’m pressed for space there is a three tier system plus sub-organization. The basics are based on quality. The best stuff gets house alphabetically on the ikea bookcase, good but lesser flicks are stashed inside cubes in the closest, and the weakest of the lot go in cloth bins in the highest point of the closet. Every horror movie that comes through here is subject to analysis of where it deserves to live. This debate gets even trickier when it comes to full series as was recently the case with Candyman.
I’d seen the original Candyman several times in the past and while I didn’t mind it, something always felt off. Watched the second film years later and found it pretty lackluster. The recent revival via a forth entry combined with a blu-ray release of the much hated third installment marked the perfect time to dive back in and really test out the legacy of this franchise. For only being four movies there’s some wild shifts in quality to contend with. The original plan was to get these watched so they could be part of black history month, even though the majority of them revolve around blonde white ladies. My PC says it’s officially March 1st but for you west coasters there’s still some black history to revel in, so let’s do this.
The original Candyman has a huge reputation as many call it a true great of the horror genre. Might as well get this outta the way but it’s not that amazing. I mean it’s a solid film with a few choice scenes and a setting that really sets it apart. What hold OG Candyman back from being an undeniable classic isn’t anything all that big so much as plentiful tiny missteps and poor choices. Sloppy editing, ugly sets, underdeveloped characters, and one heck of a messy ending. Even some of its key features are double edged such as the score by Phillip Glass which is both iconic and cheap-sounding. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves though.
For this first outing the focus is on Helen, a graduate student doing a thesis on urban myths. Her key topic is on the candyman myth of Chicago’s Cabrini Green projects. Thinking herself educated she sets out to prove how a neighborhood scared by crime and insecurity, note that she has very little understanding of social injustice, attributes social ills to a bogeyman in order to cope with reality. The story reaches peak quality at the midpoint with the flashback to the bathroom killing followed by the big revel of Candyman and the twists he provides to the story. Past that it becomes a series of scenes where Helen acts crazy and wonders why people think she’s crazy until the big face-off.
OG Candyman is a might bit messy. Lots of folks talk up how it focuses on issues of race but the way it handles those topics is both one-sided and sloppy. Other horror flicks of the era like People Under The Stars handled racial inequality through the lens of characters living through those experiences. When Helen goes to Cabrini Green she might as well be sight-seeing, taking in other peoples misery for her own potential gain. Her understanding of the difficulties that neighborhood faces is incredibly superficial and the movie never totally calls her out on it, making for a difficult to root for protagonist.
That being said, Tony Todd is an absolute boss, coming across not unlike an African American Vincent Price. His attitude, delivery, and presence go a long way in making the film memorable. Likewise there are some outstanding scenes like when Helen wakes up after first encountering Candyman. Plus the Chicago projects are a unique horror movie setting even to this day. Like I said before; it’s a good movie, but a bit short of true greatness.
Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh attempts to maintain the brainier approach of its predecessor but can’t help itself from being plain old dumb. For this second attempt the action moves down to New Orleans where a woman named Annie deals with her brother being accused of murder, a crime that stretches back further in her family past. Before long she’s mixed up with the Candyman and the search for a magic mirror… seriously,
Lots of people talk smack about jumps scares without really understanding the gap between good and poor examples. A great jump scare not only provides that quick boost of adrenaline but actually has some baring on the events you’re watching unfold. Furthermore it should amp up the threat level. Farewell to the Flesh is full of the worst kind of jump scares where nothing of note, or sometimes nothing at all, happens but there’s a loud noise edited in after the fact to make it seem scary. More often than not a character stumbles across a smelly hobo or stubs their toe on something while the music ramps way up. If you made a drinking game out of it you’d likely be spared the lame ending due to unconsciousness.
There’s a certain comfort to that overdone mid-90s estetic along with some decent atmosphere from the New Orleans Mardi-Gras setting but none of that is enough to make up for Farewell to the Flesh’s lack of thrills or ideas. Our boring heroine stumbles from one scene to the next being scared by nothing until Candyman pops up behind someone to slice em capped off by a race to break a magic mirror. And let’s talk about the big C guy’s plan here. Turns out he’s got a line of white descendants and he wants to kill em all to make his legend bigger somehow… that’s it. The racial angle is even more superficial this time with the focus on scared white girl overpowering disenfranchised cultures haunted by a boogeyman. Save for a couple decent looks at Candyman’s past this is an almost perfect example of rent it and forget it mid-90s fair.
Candyman 3: Day of the Dead ushered the series into the dank bowels of straight to video releases where it could potentially fester alongside the likes of Amityville and Hellraiser. For decades I’ve heard how terrible this one, reports that seemed legit given the series ended full stop. Pretty much everything I’d heard was correct. This thing’s dog shit all the way through. While this marks it as pretty poor viewing, personally I may have had more fun with this than with part 2. The tone and style is a weird mix of the previous films with a return to exploring race culture within a big city, this time hispanic community in L.A. Candyman himself feels closer to his first incarnation though his plan is a shaky combination of what came before, On that front this continues the family subplot from Farewell to the Flesh which makes for a really weird feature. Technically this story should be happening about nowish, maybe 2020 itself. Only a version of 2020 where folks where adult sized clothing and all phones are hardwired. That means these events are actually happening after the newest film.
Donna D’Errico of Baywatch/Baywatch Nights fame stars as Caroline, the daughter of Annie from part 2. She’s part of the art scene in L.A. who gets roped into an art show featuring the works of Daniel Robitaille, aka Candyman. Before long the big guy’s out to hell her and everyone she knows cause why not? There’s very little to praise here with The greatest highlight being the comically evil cops who actually seem like psychic premonition of public police relations in the 2020s. This is just a trashy straight to video slasher with little in the way of ambition. Tony Todd’s still doing his best and there’s a tiny speck of a new idea with some goths worshiping Candyman but it all goes nowhere. Strange enough this one is actually improved by the fourth movie as those events could explain why it took so long for him to come after Caroline as well as proposing an interesting fate for the one cop character.
By this point the series didn’t have a very favorable batting average. One decent yet messy flick followed by two dull & idiotic sequels isn’t the best way to stand out in the horror crowd. For my own personal viewing experience this meant a lot was riding on the new Candyman in cementing the overall franchise quality. Plus there was the curiosity/worry of what I was in for. The past 6 years or so have brought a bevy of what the internet calls elevated horror movies and for each one that works there’s a dozen absolute shit shows that are gonna age about as well as yogurt in an Alabama Summer.
Right off the bat there’s a massive improvement in cinematography, editing, music, all the fine details that make a movie pop. Really can’t say enough about the score which channels the spirit of the old Phillip Glass stuff without sounding so cheap. There’s some obvious effort being made to lift the series out of the lame duck slasher territory of previous sequels.
Setting production quality aside though we have something new and novel for the series, a protagonist who isn’t a white woman. For the first time ever the series looks at racial issues through the eyes of African Americans, namely an artist who has a secret connection to Cabrini Green. He develops an obsession for Candyman, just not the one we’re familiar with. In fact the film changes a whole lot about the nature of Candyman in a way that might annoy some old-school fans but really opens the series up should anyone wish to continue it.
This new flick seems to bite off more than it can chew though. Some of the new ideas are really interesting but they’re left feeling underdeveloped. The proper lack of a follow-up appearance from Helen is especially notable given how this story touches on the ending of her tale. The tiny appearance of Tony Todd, while awesome and very appreciated, is still kinda sad after all this time without him. Plus it seems a little confusing as anything other than fan service and I’d imagine newbies kinda scratching their head at it. And while the racial aspects are definitely improved on there’s still a superficial element thanks to having the characters on the outside looking in.
Issues aside this is easily the highlight of the series. It’s mean, well-made, entertaining, bloody, with just a touch of something more to give it some weight. I found myself shift from giving zero shits about a new Candyman to being all about this thing. In the modern era of long-form horror sequels this is definitely a highlight.
While I debated where to store the series within my collection I decided to do something uncharacteristic and actually split them up. Despite the first film’s issues I’m likely enough to revisit it that it can stay on the bookcase with part four to keep it company. The second and third are totally in the bins.
Alright; I’ve been plugging away at this long enough for tonight. Next update we’re gonna return to a topic I haven’t touched on in years in preparation for a long-planed series of articles to come. Either that or a snack report cause good lord have I been forgetting to keep you guys up to date on some goodies. Whatever the sequence of events I’m still doing my damnedest to get back in the flow around here, so look forward to those.
