#bernardrose

Though 2021’s Candyman won't give you nightmares, it makes up for it in unexpected ways. This sequel to the 1992 film expands on the ideas brilliantly. More than that, it makes the film topical and relevant. Stylish, inventive, and completely unpredictable, it’s so much more than a director capitalizing on a property horror fans are nostalgic for.

In the early 1990s, they say a white graduate student named Helen Lyle went on a killing spree in the Cabrini-Green projects. Others claim the real culprit was Candyman, the ghost of a lynching victim who slaughters you with his hook hand if you repeat his name five times while looking in a mirror. Inspired by the urban legend, visual artist Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) begins painting. When bodies start piling up, he becomes convinced Candyman is responsible.

At the beginning of the film, we hear of Sherman Fields (Michael Hargrove), a one-armed man the police accused of putting razor blades in candy. He was beaten to death years ago. Was he Candyman? He doesn’t have any bee-related motifs but everything else fits, except that he doesn’t look like Tony Todd... Is it just a coincidence? Something else? If Sherman isn’t the Candyman, what’s really going on in the Cabrini-Green projects?

The answers to that question are slowly unraveled, perhaps a bit too slowly for audiences expecting a straightforward supernatural slasher. Just wait. Everything comes together chillingly. Not in a "drops of blood falling from a gory hook" kind of way; writers Jordan Peele, Win Rosenfeld, and Nia DaCosta (who directs) imply that the ghosts haunting this place will never go away. Maybe Blacks won’t have to fear the crack of the whip, angry mobs, biased government policies, police officers more interested in taking care of each other than dark-skinned citizens, or narrow-minded trolls on the internet tomorrow but the pain generations felt remains. It won’t be content to sit in a grave waiting to be discovered and you better pray you're not in eyesight when it emerges.

There’s A LOT to unpack in Candyman. On top of that, you also have the tale of an artist whose sanity is eroding that incorporates traditional slasher elements and body horror. Through the use of mirrors (very appropriate), the film makes you question if Anthony has gone off the deep end, if Candyman is possessing him, or if he’s the one guy that can make it all stop.

Candyman would’ve been a better film if it were more frightening and though Nia DaCosta understands that sometimes less is more, more straightforward terror would've been nice. She nonetheless proves herself a promising new face for the genre. Many scenes just make you feel so… off. It’s nothing you can easily pinpoint; it's the way the camera tracks Anthony walking down a seemingly ordinary corridor, the way the light shines on him, the color of the scene, the way the hallway turns... Something's off-kilter. The end credits are also incredible. I was too busy looking at the shadow puppet show that expands on the story we just saw even more to read ANY of the names scrolling by.

2021’s Candyman takes the original as a jumping point and expands upon it, making the mythology infinitely bigger and more fascinating. It’s bold and provocative. (Theatrical version on the big screen, August 28, 2021)

While horror is a universally loved genre, the Black voice has been largely absent over the years.  There have been notable moments that stand out throughout the course of horror history : Ben in Night of the Living Dead, Dick Hollorann in The Shining and Blacula all had impact on a grand scale.  In 1992, an iconic character made his way onto the horror scene that eventually opened the door for characters like Blade, and eventually, films like Get Out and Us... this character was the titular focus of the Bernard Rose cult classic Candyman.

There is a very interesting subversion taking place in the film in regard to the validity of Candyman as an entity versus the very real crime taking place in the Illinois and Indiana area.  Immediately we are hit with secondhand tales of Candyman (bolstered by traditional urban legends like alligators in the sewer system), with a key detail of the Candyman story being a wake of solitary “witnesses” that soon lose their sanity.  As mentioned previously, real crimes are used to support the campfire tales of Candyman and his trail of terror, with stories like Ruthie Jean’s not only having news coverage, but direct debunking of the supernatural aspects such as Helen Lyle’s medicine cabinet apartment access.  Funny enough, Helen ventures headlong into the very real terror that is Cabrini Green, completely oblivious to the actual danger that exists in her blind pursuit of validation.  Much like the survivor of the Illinois story, Helen eventually finds herself the victim of insanity, and through this unreliable narrator presentation, one wonders if Helen may have actually been capable of committing the crimes that take place during her exploits.

As a new entry to the larger spectrum of horror, Candyman hits the nail on the head for many of the key aspects that make a good movie monster.  If looked at in silhouette, there are many monsters and unsavory characters that immediately come to mind : Nosferatu, legendary pirates like Blackbeard and Michael Myers all share similar statures upon first glance.  The grotesque nature of his hooked hand and bee infestation make him repulsive upon sight, and even more so when attempts to process and comprehend him take place.  His backstory matches that of a many horror staples who were created by the swift and vicious hand of mob justice.  The rules upon summoning him are somehow both specific and vague simultaneously : it is known you must say his name five times, but based on the first kill we see, it apparently doesn’t have to be the same person that says the name, and based on the experience of Helen, he will either show up instantly or take his sweet time.  He can appear at will wherever he seemingly likes, and in one instance he flies out of a room, and yet he is (seemingly) conquered via the use of fire, ironically once again at the hands of mob justice.  It is this mixture of elements, not to mention the copycat Candyman that threatens the citizens of Cabrini Green and assaults Helen, that make him such an instantly powerful figure in the realm of horror.

Films like Candyman can be used to study how one builds tension and sets mood in multiple facets.  To be fair, using Philip Glass to score your film is an immediate win, and his score elevates the level of tension and expectation from the film’s opening moments.  The city of Chicago is used to great effect, with its rich history, distinct look and economic disparity all helping to build two worlds : the academic world of curious outsiders going to great lengths to make sense of the senseless violence in Cabrini Green, and the world of the disenfranchised people forced to live eye to eye with the terror, be it supernatural or otherwise.  The iconic fur-lined trench coat and hook on the hand make the Candyman character design stand out, giving him a dominating and intimidating presence that resonates outside of the screen.

Virginia Madsen, unknowingly or not, channels some deep-seeded tension born of the way that relationships between Black men and White women are considered taboo, with her gaze and fascination communicated through her acting having both a direct meaning and tons of subtext.  Standing opposite her is Tony Todd, who brings a Shakespearean grandeur to his portrayal of Candyman that puts viewers in awe of him in a very similar way that those he terrorizes feel.  Kasi Lemmons does a good job of standing as the voice of reason for Madsen’s Helen without leaning into the role of a nagging or spineless character, often providing reason and insight to Helen’s blind pursuit.  DeJuan Guy is surprisingly powerful as a young man frozen in fear by an outwardly misperceived terror that Helen fails to comprehend.  Supporting performances by Xander Berkeley, Vanessa Estelle Williams, Gilbert Lewis, Carolyn Lowery, Stanley DeSantis and many more make the world of Candyman as visceral as it is terrifying. 

Although I wasn't taken by Paperhouse, I'd like to see it again to be sure about how I feel. I kept expecting certain things, only for it to move in a completely different direction. I could never get a foothold on what the story's objective. Is it a drama? A horror film? A coming of age story? It’s all of the above but the blend is not even. I can see it connecting with certain audiences so let me tell you what it's about in case you stumble upon this British dark fantasy.

11-year-old Anna (Charlotte Burke) is ordered to stay in bed by her doctor. She passes the time by drawing. In her sleep, she is transported to a world where her drawings come to life. Inside the drawing of the house, she meets Marc (Elliott Spiers).

The premise makes this sound like a children’s movie, the kind of thing that plays on Lifetime about the girl with the disease of the week who makes a friend and gets better. In a way that’s what this movie is… but it’s also a horror film. The world in which Anna and Marc meet lends itself well to terror. It gets surprisingly frightening, particularly about three-quarters in, when Anna and Marc try to escape from an assailant inside the dream world.

You'd think a movie where people meet danger in an imaginary world would have little tension but the film handles this aspect well. The plot is set up in such a way that even though Anna is dreaming you feel the danger she's in. There are real-world equivalents to the peril she's facing so you'll never say “come on you dumb kid, just wake up already”.

The horror elements (which is what the graphic designer and marketing people decided to highlight on the VHS cover) is well-executed. My issue is that it's only partially a horror film. The beginning and the end are not scary at all. At most, the conclusion is bittersweet. With the intensity dropping way low and so suddenly, the final act feels like it drags because you don't realize that the emotional connections Anna has with the people in her life is what you were waiting to see get resolved, not the monster business. It’s frustrating. Paperhouse perfectly captures the way dreams can be frightening without making any sense and the way you can have these irrational phobias as a kid that will suddenly vanish completely. I wish the whole movie had integrated the two different stories better.

While I didn’t like Paperhouse while it played, I still recommend it. Now, you know this is a movie about a little girl who is growing up, and also about a frightening fantasy/fever dream world. This means you won't have the same experience I did while watching it. That’s a good thing. Despite my experience, Paperhouse had a strong impact on me and I'm willing to give it a second shot. It will also allow me to pay attention to the score, which many have praised.

My response to Paperhouse is a mixed one, but I firmly believe that I’m in the minority. I’m not sure if you’ll have to dig through bins of VHS tapes to find it or if there’s a more modern release available out there, but it's worth searching for. (On VHS, September 14, 2015)