Being raised on horror movies since I was literally a baby...I was never really bothered by monsters or psycho killers. At the age of 6 my parents would buy me issues of Fangoria magazines and let me pick out a VHS horror film if I had good report cards. Horror was always just fantasy and fun. Of course some films would creep me out, but not enough to the point where I had to stop watching. But there is one movie that til this day I struggle watching and that one is Candyman. The first time I saw this movie I was probably 7. After seeing it, I was always a little creeped out looking at bathroom mirrors, thinking that our hooked hand killer was staring at me from the other side ready to rip me in two. I even had nightmares sometimes about being lost in the projects with walls covered with Candyman graffiti. So what is it about this movie that has had this lasting effect on me? Tony Todd is creepy as hell, but I know it's not him that creeps me out.
I grew up in a city called Irvington which happens to be one of the most dangerous cities in NJ, to put it frankly a good portion of this town is ghetto as hell. The film Candyman takes place in the bad parts of Chicago, where there are high crime rates, gangs, and so forth. Needless to say, it looked just like the area of town only blocks away from me. It made it feel real. There was even this high rise building that was part of the projects that had broken windows, trash all over, curtains hanging out the windows, it looked almost identical to where Candyman did his killings.
The film is about a young more privileged white woman who is doing a study on the urban legend of Candyman. The myth: say his name a few times in the mirror and he comes out with a hook for a hand and kills you. In her research she realizes this series of projects (low income housing) is terrorized by this legend to the point where there is a gang that uses this legend as their identity and terrorize. Our leading lady, Helen Lyle, decides to summon Candyman as part of her research. Throughout the film she is haunted by him as he begins to kill the people around her. He is a tall menacing black man with an oversized bloody hook for a hand. His body is covered in chewed up flesh and hoards of bees. What we realize is that this isn't just a slasher flick, but it's also a story about race and sociology. Exactly where these cursed projects sit is where Candyman him self was murdered by racist white men for sleeping with a white woman in the 1800s. The legend of Candyman isn't just a ghost story, but shows the evils that can stem from other evils.
Candyman also has a very unsettling score that some how manages to stay in your head every time you watch this film. In my opinion, the music is just as unsettling as Tony Todd. Even as I write this post I keep looking up at my bedroom mirror fearing I am going to see him. If you want to see a film that will chill you to the bone, I recommend this one.
Spoiler Alert: The interior shot of Helen in her coffin is so unsettling. As is the scene when Candyman's hook comes out of her medicine chest and then finds him standing in her hallway. Scares the hell out of me.
