Female Film Critics 24/375
You know his name. You dare not say it five times, lest you be on the sad end of his thrash-that-ass hook. Directed by power visionary Nia DaCosta, Candyman stars rising sensation Yahya Abdul Mateen II as Anthony McCoy, a painter struggling to put together his next gallery show only to find his work inspired by the legendary tale of the Candyman.
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Beyond its success at breathing new life into a decades’ old story, Candyman is a reminder that horror movies don’t have to be formulaic scare machines. Fun though body-count movies can be, more ambitious horror films operate on different levels, delivering the shocks and scares while exploring material that’s disturbing on a different level.
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Candyman leverages visual art and the film’s stars to consider the history of racial subjugation, the ongoing trauma of police violence and discrimination, and the way white supremacy continues to be leveraged to benefit white America. It’s when it rises above subtext and action and is telegraphed through conversation that it loses its audience.
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I had never seen the 1992 horror film Candyman, and I’m so glad I watched it before I saw the new movie of the same name. This is being promoted as a “spiritual sequel” to the ’92 film, but it’s very much a direct follow-on from the original story. Both films use horror to delve deeper into humanity’s dark side.
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